Learning about sustainable cities in GEOG 406
During the summer of 2020,I took a class called Geography 406: Sustainable Cities. This course is normally part of the Northern European Urban Sustainability Field School – in which students travel to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands to learn about innovation in urban sustainability across Europe.
The summer field school was cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions, but Dr. Owens ran one part of the course in an online, community-engaged format.
A "live tour" of Copenhagen
This course was extremely interesting in terms of both the course content and the community-engaged projects.
After learning about ways in which we can create more livable, inclusive, playful, and sustainable cities, we were taken on a virtual field trip around Copenhagen by the founder of Cycling Without Age. On this live tour, we saw different sustainable, innovative infrastructure all around Copenhagen, all through the lens of a cyclist in the city.
It was really wonderful to experience Copenhagen as ‘firsthand’ as we possibly could. It was so nice to be able to connect with people across the world while being socially isolated, especially through exciting ideas of sustainability and building resilient, happy communities.
Working with NetZero Victoria
Our final task for this course was to complete a community-engaged research project with one of three community partners – NetZero Victoria, Island Transportation Organization, or the City of Victoria Climate Action team.
I chose to work with NetZero Victoria, which is an initiative by Wendy and Don Fienberg to renovate their 1912 home to make it net-zero in the most sustainable way possible. For this project, each student group took on different tasks, such as videos about the project and maps of sustainable resources in Victoria.
My partner and I, after consulting with Wendy, decided to create infographics about the journey of creating this net-zero home, focusing on demolition, waste management and solar panel installation.
Bringing learning forward
Learning about how we can contribute to creating resilient, livable cities was so relevant during the first Covid-19 lock down, as the nature of cities started to change due to people having to stay at home and walk almost everywhere.
Everyone’s worlds got a lot smaller during this time, and many people were living a much more ‘local’ life within their communities. It was so exciting to learn about building sustainable communities from the ground up during such a pivotal moment all over the world, and then be able to use those ideas we discussed in class in our community-based projects.
Although it wasn’t quite as fun as travelling around five European countries with a bunch of your friends and learning about sustainable innovations, this online course provided an amazing opportunity to learn about creating better futures for our cities and allowed us to help community members in the process.