Posted 27 May 2016 / 0
Moss image courtesy Dick Mudde via Wikimedia Commons GreenFabLab Barcelona “Moss Voltaics” A student in my Ecology for Architects class pointed me towards this design project, which creates a building facade system designed to pull electrical current from small growth chambers containing moss. The technology — dubbed a biophotovoltaic — turns the energy captured by photosynthesis Read More
A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Green Design, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Quantitative Analysis, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Urban Design, Web
Posted 14 Apr 2016 / 0
One of the great things about teaching students in Pratt’s Undergraduate Architecture program is that so many of them come to Pratt from abroad. International students bring with them a wealth of knowledge and experience that greatly broadens the dialogue in our classroom, and are especially important members of courses with an international world view. Read More
A Minor Post, Deserts, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Public Policy, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy
Posted 11 Apr 2016 / 0
The Pratt Institute Chemistry, Machinery, and Engineering buildings in 1950 (image courtesy of Pratt@125) A colleague of mine (Daniel Wright) sent around this image from Pratt Institute’s 125th Anniversary photo time line collection. It’s a pretty amazing testament to how quickly things can change in a culturally-evolving environment. These buildings still stand at Pratt: in Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Architecture, Climate Change, Cultural Evolution, Pratt Institute, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, Sustainable Pratt, Sustainable Urban Design
Posted 09 Apr 2016 / 0
A student in my Ecology for Architects course sent me the link to this TED Talk by Neri Oxman about some of her projects at the intersection of design and biology. I think that my student meant for me to watch it, and perhaps might have been interested in my thoughts, but the talk struck such a Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Architecture, Closed Loop Systems, Fashion, Film, Television, & Video, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability
Posted 08 Apr 2016 / 0
Ecological footprinting is a regular required exercise in my Ecology and Ecology for Architects courses. I ask my students to use the ecological footprinting tool created by the Center for Sustainable Economy to calculate how many earths their lifestyle would require to be sustainable. I also ask them to profile an older relative (for most students, a parent) Read More
A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Biomes, Ecological Footprinting, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Food, MSCI-270, Ecology, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Quantitative Analysis, Resource Consumption, Sustainability
Posted 01 Apr 2016 / 1
After criticizing the Australian government’s plan to cull feral felines last September, legendary vocalist Morrissey has agreed save the cats by adopting all two million of them. Australia’s plan to get rid of the invasive felines was motivated by studies showing that feral cats have already caused “the extinction of some ground-dwelling birds and small to medium-sized Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Conservation Biology, Ethics, Felids, Invasive Species, Predation, Sustainability, Urban Ecology
Posted 22 Mar 2016 / 1
On Monday, March 21st I had the pleasure of visiting the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, New York to discuss the role that science plays in helping people to achieve the goal of a sustainable society. In a talk entitled “Pulling Humanity Back Inside the Boundaries: How Science Serves Sustainability“, I gave students some Read More
A Major Post, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Closed Loop Systems, Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, Ecology Education, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Eutrophication, Food, Habitat Destruction, Hypothesis Testing, Methods, Philosophy, Pollution, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Resource Consumption, Science (General), Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Harvesting, System Stability, Teaching, Water Supply, Wild Foods
Posted 21 Mar 2016 / 1
Historical photo of the Pratt Steam Power Plant courtesy of Wikimedia Commons This morning the Pratt community received a heartening message from our Board of Trustees: Dear Members of the Pratt Community, At its meeting on March 9, Pratt’s Board of Trustees took another major step in the Institute’s overall commitment to environmental sustainability by Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Economics, Envirolutions, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy
Posted 14 Mar 2016 / 0
There’s an interesting article about professorial fashion published in Vitae today. Written by Ben Barry and entitled “Fashion Matters“, this short piece explores how professors have traditionally expressed their being “above fashion” by wearing either very predictable or very boring clothing. Barry claims that there’s a lot of under-utilized potential in the professorial wardrobe. He suggests that Read More
A Minor Post, Fashion, Higher Education, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Teaching
Posted 14 Mar 2016 / 0
It was a great honor to speak on this past Monday, March 7th, 2016 as part of Columbia University’s Population Biology seminar series. I gave a talk entitled “Breeders, Propagators, & Creators: Culture, Biology, and the Future of Human Evolution” to a small group of biology faculty and students from a nice diversity of different Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Uniqueness, Kin Selection, Parenting, Population Pressure, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and Reproduction
