Sustainability Curriculum

Science

Environmental Science is our core sustainability course. It covers the major issues and many subsidiary themes. We use a college-level text, supplemented with updated units and local examples. Biology, Physics, and Advanced Earth Science also integrate topics important to sustainability, such as energy, fossil fuels, minerals, water resources, and demography.

Senior Seminar and Research Project

All seniors take this year-long seminar, which focuses on the land and culture of the Southwestern United States, with emphasis on the region's sustainability problems, which are common to much of the world. The second quarter is devoted to a research project of the student's choosing.

Humanities

The Southwest is home to some of the nation's oldest cultures, which have sustained themselves in a challenging environment for thousands of years. At the same time, close by the campus students see the remains of other settlements that were not sustainable, from farming peoples who mysteriously disappeared six centuries ago to a failed 19th century homestead. These experiences give students a longer perspective than current technological issues.

Outdoor Programs

Our outdoor programs take students on off-campus excursions ranging from a class period to eight days. They are educational as well as fun, offering outstanding opportunities to study natural history, vegetation change, and a host of sustainability issues firsthand.
 
Sustainability Activity

Students who elect this afternoon activity do projects investigating sustainable practices such as community food growing, energy conservation, building projects, and recycling. 

Ranching Activity

Students who elect this afternoon activity work with the Orme Ranch Manager on projects such as range and vegetation inspection, maintenance of fencing and water developments, and cattle roundup. This involves both hard physical labor and practical lessons on ranch economics and holistic range management.

Stanley Knowlton Sustainability Research Award

This cash prize, presented at the spring Academic Awards, is awarded to the student who has done the most outstanding research project and written report related to sustainability at Orme.

Examples of 2010 original student research
  

• Metering and detailed analysis of campus energy use in representative buildings, including daily and weekly cycles, in search ways to conserve.

• Reconstructing the geomorphological change along local riparian areas (stream entrenchment), using historic photos and analysis of vegetation change and stream terraces.

Pictured at left is construction of the 30-meter Orme Community Meteorological Station tower in 2010. It will be used for student research.