Learning about and engaging with the environment involves the integration of many disciplines and combines the classroom experience with work in the field, fusing theory and practice. At The New School the nucleus of this engagement is the Tishman Environment and Design Center. It is a place for students and faculty from all colleges and schools to gather, interact, and explore shared experiences. It facilitates research, curriculum development, internships, and fieldwork opportunities. It stimulates critical thinking and builds relationships through lectures, public programs, workshops, and conferences.
The center is exactly that, a center of creative work and experience that allows students and faculty to explore the curriculum, share and interact on projects, and research and work with the community at large to explore opportunities for collaboration.
Our environment is the larger New York metropolitan area. There are many opportunities to work with towns, cities, states, non-governmental groups, corporations, other universities, and other organizations. Through the Tishman Environment and Design Center, we hope to connect students and faculty to this broader coalition to enhance learning, civic engagement, and research.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Plastic that has floated on the islands of Midway Atoll. On tomorrow’s Fresh Air, we’ll talk to journalist Edward Humes about the Pacific Garbage Patch — and the other gyres of trash floating around our oceans.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch (by J Gilbert)
On today’s Fresh Air, how industrial farming destroyed the tasty tomato…and why we’re partially responsible, says Barry Estabrook: “It’s the price we pay for insisting we have food out of season and not local. We foodies and people in the sustainable food movement chant these mantras ‘local, seasonable, organic, fair-trade, sustainable’ and they almost become meaningless because they’re said so often and you see them in so many places. If you strip all those away, they do mean something, and what they mean is that you end up with something like a Florida tomato in the winter — which is tasteless.”
