This My Nature Outing project inquires into questions surrounding sustainable design and examines local efforts at the University of Pittburgh. My Nature Outing is sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh's John C. Mascaro Center for Sustainable Engineering and the Office of the Provost's Year of Data and Society.
What is sustainable design? What does it do? How does it work? Why is it important? How can we increase interest in sustainable design?
My favorite sustainable design project was the bike cave. The bike cave reuses and upgrades old bikes and resels them for a low price. This is important because people who can't afford a new bike can by a used one while also preventing pollution. We can add more bike cave shops around Pittsburgh to reduce the amount of pollution and the amount of materials beeingg used.
Who did you interview? What did you discuss? Why was this discussion valuable?
(Project Note: Thomas did not submit an interview.)
This is a rain garden. The rain garden filters rain water into drains beneath the ground. It is important because if we let it sit there it will go into the street drains. We should expand this design so we can generate power from them.
This is a photo of a pollinator garden. The garden is made to atract pollinators to pollinate our plants. This is important because 75% to 95% of our food sources need to be pollinated. This is important because if the bees go extinct, we will lose almost all of our food sources.
This is a thrift shop. The shift store operates by reducing, reusing, and recycling. This is very important because recylcing old clothes and random things and selling them for a low price helps people that can't afford clothes while not wasting materials. We could expand this idea by making more thrift shops and reusing lots of materials.