Course Syllabus

CLEI 150A: Sustainability Praxis in the Built Environment

Class Times:

Tuesday 4-5:45, College Eight 152
Thursday 4-5:30, Lower Quarry A3

Instructors:

Course Description:

The goal of this 2 unit tutorial is to introduce students to the concepts, methods and practices of conceptualizing and conducting research into sustainability praxis in the build environment, with a focus on campus and community education and research sites. The tutorial consists of roughly 70 minutes of classroom instruction each week, and an equivalent amount of hands-on field research. Readings, analysis, and homework exercises comprise the remainder of the expected commitment to this course.

Note that this course does require more than six hours of work per week.
The focus of the Fall quarter is on understanding how energy, water, food, raw materials and waste flow through the human-built environment, with a particular concern for systemic and infrastructural relationships.

Students learn basic techniques and tools for estimating resource flows. They conduct initial surveys and assessments, perform building energy and resource auditing, learn the essentials of how to size, install, operate, and monitor energy and water supply, understand resource usage and distribution patterns. They will participate in longitudinal research regarding best-practice intensive and urban agroecology, energy monitoring and research interviews, and green building construction. There may be one or two field trips during the quarter.

This is an enormous range of information and field experience to cover in a 2 credit course. Students wishing to devote more time to fully understanding and implementing the course topics have an option of adding a 2-unit lab/independent study component to this course.

Course Experience and Expectations:

CLEI 150A is the first quarter of a year-long sequence. Students who choose continue CLEI 150 throughout the year will continue to carry out hands-on research and analysis, focusing on an interest area of their choosing, while learning analytical tricks of the trade (Winter 2015) and best practices for identifying and developing project, grant, and entrepreneurial narratives and funding proposals for future ventures (Spring 2015).

Admission to the tutorial is open to all UCSC undergraduates. Some STEM (science-engineering-technology-mathematics) background is helpful but not required, although students will be expected to build the knowledge and research skills that are necessary to fulfill class requirements and activities. There are no prerequisites for the course.

Student Learning Objectives:

1. Understanding of the basic aspects of resource flows in the built environment, and an ability to conduct basic assessments and quantification of these flows;
2. Introduction to social science aspects of human behavior, habits and practices where resource use is concerned and basic understanding of survey design and implementation;
3. Basic ability to organize and conduct research projects under faculty supervision, design, install and maintain monitoring equipment, and understand and analyze data.
   
   

Course Requirements & Assessment:

Student work includes weekly problem sets, design of research protocols, conduct of field assessments and research, data logging and analysis and final presentations. A summative 8 page research experience paper is required in lieu of a final exam.

There are no required books for this tutorial, but there are on-line materials that must be read in advance of each class. These are all available on-line or the CLEI 150A eCommons website. Please note that many of these readings are accessible only through a UCSC server, or via the off-campus access port on the UCSC Library web site.
 

Course Grade Weighting:

• Participation: 15%
• Assignments: 20%
• Fieldwork: 20%
• Presentation: 15%
• Final paper: 30%