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?
Pollinator Gardens have plants that polliators can easily get to and pollinate
Rain Gardens collect water and drain it so that places don't get flooded
Tree canopys reduce temperatures
My favorite sustainable design is bikes. Bikes are a good method of transportation that don't use gas and reduce traffic on the streets. The more people riding bikes, the less air pollution we have in the world. Also, bikes are fun. We could make biking even more efficiant by adding more bike lanes on the streets.
Outside of Bike Cave
Bikes in Bike Cave
Ramp for bikes and more accesibility
I interviewed James. We discussed what he learned on the sustainable design walk. This is important because it shows what someone from a different perspective learned.
(Project Note: William's microphone was not properly attached and he failed to capture audio.)
Pollinator Gardens have plants that pollinators can easily get to and pollinate. How it works is that people plant plants that attract pollinators and this gives them an easy way to pollinate. It's important because a lot of bees are dying right now and they are really important to our ecosystem. They provide 75-90% of our fruits and vegetables. More pollinator gardens would allow more bees to pollinate and survive.
Rain Gardens collect water and drain it so that places and sewers don't get flooded. What happens is that the plants in the garden absorb the rain water so a large amount of it doesn't go into the sewer system, flood it, and pollute the rivers. It's important becuause Pittsburgh has a lot of rain and if we had no rain gardens, all the water would go into the sewers and flood them. Then that polluted water would go into the rivers and contaminate them and the fish and life forms that live in them. We could improve this by making the size of the gardens bigger so they can absorb more water.
Tree canopys reduce temperatures. The Arbor Day Foundation reports that trees can reduce the earths temp by 2-4 degrees fahrenheit. This is important because more people die from heat stroke than from cold exposure each year. Increasing the number of trees we have in the city is going to be important because the world is getting hotter from climate change so the more trees, the less hot it's going to be.