Enhancing Campus Environmental Quality: Analyzing and Addressing the Impact of Sustainable Practices

Directions

with your chosen scenario in mind, address the assignment prompts below by completing the corresponding sections in the Project Template.

Specifically, you must address the following:

Sustainable Practices

You will look at the interconnectedness of environmental issues and human behavior as it relates to your chosen scenario. To do this, you will look at both how the environmental systems in use impact the community as well as how the community use impacts the environmental systems in place. You will also look at the group’s overall bias in addressing sustainability in your community.

1. Describe how environmental systems in use in your chosen scenario impact human behavior.
   1. Consider ecosystems, cultural systems, and organizational systems in your response.
2. Describe the impact of the current resource use on the environment.
   1. What resources does the group in your scenario use?
   2. What is the impact on the environment?
3. Describe how human ideology impacts behavior regarding environmental systems.
   1. What policies or vision impact the environmental systems in use within your chosen group?
   2. Think about your chosen group. What behaviors do they practice regarding the environmental systems?
4. Explain the role of cultural bias in your chosen group’s approach to global sustainability.
   1. What are some of the biases within the group that impact the use of the resources discussed in the scenario?

Scenario: Environmental Quality Scenario

from Project Guidelines and Rubric  You are a member of your college’s Environmental Science Quality Club. The group has decided they’d  like to move forward with a campaign to help inform and educate the campus community on what  environmental quality is, how it should look on campus, and what actionable steps the campus  community could take to encourage environmental quality practices. By reading the Environmental  Science Quality Club profile, you will learn about an example that highlights sustainability in action. In  the Project Template, you will describe some actionable steps the club could take for each pillar of  sustainability.  Organization Profile  At a local college, the Environmental Quality Club’s goal is to educate the college community and local  community on issues facing the environment. It is mostly made up of environmental science majors and  minors. The Environmental Quality Club has mainly focused on the outdoor quality issues around  campus and in the local community. Many recent reports came out about the poor indoor quality in  many of the academic buildings and residence halls on campus. It was found that many of these  buildings and halls still had asbestos in the walls and ceilings, as well as dangerous mold that the college  has ignored for decades due to lack of funds to remodel and renovate. The college lacks any  sustainability plan to help mitigate this very dangerous indoor air quality due to the asbestos. As a  member of the Environmental Quality Club, you were referred to the following case study to help lead  the charge and educate the campus community on the need to improve the indoor air quality.  Case Study Summary  Indoor air quality is important to consider, as many people spend much of their time indoors. A team at  the Faculty of Civil Engineering building on the campus of Technical University of Kosice in Slovakia  investigated the indoor environment quality (IEQ) of classroom environments. The study aimed to assess  the impact of various factors, including temperature, humidity, air quality, and lighting, on the comfort  and well-being of students and teachers. The results of the study showed that the IEQ in the classroom  was generally satisfactory, but there were some issues with temperature and humidity that needed to  be addressed. The authors suggest that improving the IEQ in classrooms, through increasing natural  ventilation or installing environmental control systems in the building, can have a positive impact on the  health and productivity of students and teachers.