MIU Blogs
Amy and Troy Van Beek report that Ideal Energy Inc., a solar energy business they co-own in Fairfield, is currently working on both small- and large-scale projects that service communities in the Midwest and nationally. The work they have already accomplished has made Fairfield the city with the highest number of solar energy installations per capita in Iowa. You can see photos of their installations at Ideal Energy’s website.
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As a part of the MIU Sustainable Living department’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Richard Register, a MIU Visiting Scholar, spoke about his solution for humanity’s environmental problems: ecocities.
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Douglas Tuers, a member of Green Iowa AmeriCorps at MIU, coordinated and moderated a discussion about the environment and spirituality with a panel consisting of MIU’s Dr. Travis Cox, Dr. Evan Finkelstein, recent Sustainable Living graduate Pia Fritsch, and guests Father Thomas Miller and his wife Donna Miller discuss how religion and spirituality have affected the environment through the course of history. They delve deeply into what they believe has led to the current state of our spiritual relationship with the environment. They cover topics such as how...
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UPDATE: Watch the entire lecture below!
For the first time ever, Iowans can leave a legacy of healthy food to the next generation, making way for a cleaner planet, sustainable food farms and thriving rural economies. Suzan Erem, co-founder and president of the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT) will explain how this statewide nonprofit is creating a whole new way to own farmland and “feed the world.”
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“Making Peace with the Earth,” a course on global environmental law and food policy being offered in block 5 (May), will feature top experts, including Ved Nanda, JD, the director of International Legal Studies at the University of Denver and a leading international law scholar and global activist.
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Heather Caldwell, a student in MIU’s Sustainable Living department, has been a busy bee. Ever since taking the Tiny Houses course, Heather has had her sights set on creating a sustainable community for single mothers. “The month-long course covers a plethora of topics ranging from design and materials to building Tiny House Communities and off-grid living,” according to Heather. The first step in making her big Tiny House dream happen was to try it out with her own family.
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Flo Bannout, manager of the Sustainable Living department’s bike shop, worked with MIU Campus Security to schedule an abandoned bike pickup. With a team that consisted of Rich Dana, Flo and others they were able to pickup 53 bikes around the university’s campus! The baseline criteria for choosing the bikes was based on if they had completely rusted chains and 2 flat tires.
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Following his Seed Starting workshop, Sascha Kyssa of Naturewise Academy held a workshop about starting and maintaining your own vermicompost.
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We got an on-the-road telephone update from Justin Cutter in late February 2015, as he was driving to southern California to start his next 6-week tour of schools. Justin teaches organic, sustainable farming to students of all ages right from his 25-foot box truck—his mobile greenhouse, where students feel, smell, taste, and water his plants. Justin teaches people how to use limited space to grow nutritious foods that require the least resources.
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Sustainable Living students from MIU visited Iowa City’s Englert Theatre to listen to a talk given by Vandana Shiva, entitled Eco-Feminism: Women in Defense of the Earth. Vandana is the University of Iowa’s chosen Distinguished Lecturer of 2015. As a world-renowned environmental advocate and activist, Vandana Shiva presented an incredibly coherent and moving speech about the effects of large corporations are destroying our natural ecological systems. The message she conveyed was about how a more loving, nurturing and holistic approach toward the environment is needed for it’s survival.
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