Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

Science and art in dialogue: Pratt Manhattan Gallery hosts Dr. Rachael Winfree

Posted 02 Feb 2017 / 0

I am proud to have contributed to an exciting event happening next Thursday, February 9th, 2017 at 6 pm at Pratt Manhattan Gallery. For the past two months this prominent on-campus gallery has featured a show called Nectar: War upon the Bees. The show contains a great variety of works that engage questions of agricultural sustainability, human Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Art & Design, Biodiversity Loss, Community Ecology, Film & Video, Food, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Hymenoptera, Installation Art, Interactions, Mutualism, Photography, Pollination, Pollution, Pratt Institute, Science in Art & Design, Sculpture, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture

Celebrating Studio Days (Fall 2016)

Posted 08 Dec 2016 / 0

The Juliana Curran Design Center, where Interior Design, Industrial Design, and Communications Design critiques take place For the past three academic years, Pratt has instituted a new feature of its academic calendar: Studio Days, four days sandwiched between the penultimate instructional week and finals week, are dedicated solely to critiques, surveys, and final reviews in the studio majors. The Read More

A Major Post, Critiques, Reviews, & Surveys, Higher Education, Sustainability, Teaching

What “rolling coal” has to say about the cultural state of sustainability efforts

Posted 05 Dec 2016 / 0

Image of a Ford F-150 “rolling coal” courtesy of Salvatore Arnone via Wikimedia Commons. In a recent meeting of my Ecology course dedicated to sustainable policies, we were discussing why people don’t choose to adopt sustainable technologies. I think that the question was asked under the assumption that people want to be more sustainable, but face financial Read More

A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Behavior, Belief, Climate Change, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economic sustainability, Economics, Environmental Justice, Memetic Fitness, Pollution, Public Policy, Punishment, Social Dilemmas, Social Diversity, Social Norms, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Transportation, System Stability

2016 Sustainability Summit live on Pratt’s Video Site

Posted 01 Dec 2016 / 0

Here are a couple of videos from the Sustainability Summit Panel that I participated in last October. The first is Josh Fox’s talk following the screening of his movie How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change: The second is the panel discussion, which features Fox and my colleagues Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Envirolutions, Environmental Justice, Green Design, Marine Ecosystems, My publications, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resilience, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Pratt

Julia Buntaine explores the potential power of art and science collaborations

Posted 18 Nov 2016 / 0

Last year, Pratt Professor Ágnes Mócsy started a new speaker series at Pratt called Art.Sci Affair. The series is designed to foster conversations about what Mócsy referred to as “scientists who dip into art” and “artists who dip into science”. This semester’s speaker was Julia Buntaine, an artist with a background and continuing interest in neuroscience. Buntaine Read More

A Major Post, Art & Design, Collaborative Art, Department of Mathematics & Science, Green Design, Industrial Design, Installation Art, Neuroscience, Public Art, Public Outreach, Resilience, Science (General), Science in Art & Design, Sculpture, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Urban Design, Talks & Seminars

Concerned about NYC’s air quality? Here’s a quick page to check…

Posted 04 Nov 2016 / 0

The EPA’s AirNow site allows you to see real-time indices of air pollution in your area The section in Josh Fox’s How to Let Go of the World film about Chinese air pollution got me thinking about the air that I expose myself to in New York City. There are so many ways in which Read More

A Minor Post, Pollution, Public Outreach, Sustainability, Urban Planning

Want to know where NYC’s water supply stands? There’s a DEP page for that!

Posted 02 Nov 2016 / 0

I recently discovered this page on the NYC.gov Environmental Protection site. It’s pretty cool: if you are worried about NYC’s water supply, you can get up-to-date information on where our reservoirs stand. When I ask my students to cite sustainability issues, they often point to how water is wasted in NYC on things like spraying Read More

A Minor Post, Ecosystem Services, Green Design, Public Policy, Sustainable Urban Design, Urban Ecology, Water Supply, Web

My ecological footprint for 2016-2017

Posted 31 Oct 2016 / 0

It’s that time of year again. Once again I send my students in my Ecology course out to estimate their ecological footprints, so to show that I am holding myself to a similar standard — and to make sure to keep myself ecologically self-aware — I always make sure to make my own footprint public. This should Read More

A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Ecological Footprinting, Ecology Education, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Habitat Destruction, MSCI-270, Ecology, Pollution, Sustainability, Teaching Tools

An inspiring summit, but big challenges at home and afar…

Posted 22 Oct 2016 / 0

A still of Josh Fox in Beijing from his newest documentary, How to Let Go of the World. All in all it was an ambitious evening. I am not sure of how it came that Pratt was able to host a visit from Josh Fox, documentary filmmaker, after a screening of his newest movie How to Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Cultural Evolution, Envirolutions, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Population Pressure, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Talks & Seminars

Sustainability Summit at Pratt Institute featuring Josh Fox

Posted 18 Oct 2016 / 0

I am excited to be one of the Pratt faculty members who will be on hand at the first annual Sustainability Summit sponsored by the Student Government Association and Envirolutions club. The Summit takes place this Thursday (October 20th, 2016) from 5:30-10 pm in Higgins Hall Auditorium. There will be a screening of the Josh Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Envirolutions, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Sustainability