Live Green Community is a residential learning community at CSU designed to provide students with service oriented projects on sustainability practices for public lands. Students focus on a project during the academic year and work directly with the land manager towards a specific product. The goal of Live Green is to provide students with experience and research on sustainability and public land management. Visit Green, Buy Local is one project created with Great Sand Dunes National Park in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. The valley is one of the oldest Hispanic communities in the US and is dominated by rural agriculture operations. The local economy is agriculture dominated but has seen a sudden growth in solar industries given the high solar potential. The park currently attracts over 300,000 visitors. The students needed to develop sustainability recommendations to reduce the footprint of the park visitors while increasing awareness of the surrounding community and its renewable resources. The project had three parts (1) Visit Green; (2) Be green; and (3) Live Green. The first part focused on behavioral changes that visitors should take before visiting the park to reduce waste and recycling needs. The second looked at best practices while at the park including the Buy Local emphasis to promote sustainable valley industries. The third identified behaviors that visitors could apply to everyday life.
Results/Conclusions:
Fourteen freshman participated in the semester long project. Students met with the park superintendent and outlined the parks needs. They spent the first part of the semester learning from experts on sustainable agriculture, park management, water issues, and community practices. The students spent spring break at the park meeting with the residents, local ranchers, farmers, extension agents, and federal scientists. The remainder of the semester was focused on creating project posters and web pages for each of the main topic areas for the park to post on their website and display to visitors. Students were highly engaged with park management, ranchers, local producers and others. Project posters provided detailed descriptions on renewable energy development in the valley, sustainable agriculture, wilderness values, and community engagement. Student interviews conducted before and after the spring break experience at the park demonstrated that the service based learning provided them with real insights on sustainability and renewable energy from a rural Hispanic community perspective.
