For the anchor course of my certificate, I took a course called Introduction to sustainability. This class focused on the range of natural processes that are relevant to landscape architecture and the relationships between the natural processes. These natural processes include climate, geomorphology, geology, hydrology, soils and vegetation communities. The exercises that we completed included conceptual manipulation of the natural processes that we covered. For example, we did a whole class project where we were split into “countries” and had to make a case as to what was feasible for our country in terms of sustainable change on a governmental level. Then, we had an entire class debate where we fought for what we needed and could provide for others to see if we were able to come to an agreement that benefited everyone and was the most sustainable for the planet. By using real time software, we were able to see how the proposed changes would affect the global climate. This exercise was useful because it applied abstract concepts of sustainable change to real world parameters and made it easier to understand the global struggles we are facing against climate change. Throughout this course I developed the ability to assess the environmental impact of various land use and landscape design decisions. As well as helped me to be able to identify environmental policies affecting the sustainability of the built environment.
One of my favorite aspects of this class was the collaboration that we did on assignments. Almost all of the assignments were partner based or it was encouraged to discuss what we were doing with our classmates to create more ideas. I gained skills that helped me with the ability to integrate information from a variety of sources, instead of thinking that the only right way to do something is my way. This was something that was useful to me in other courses where interdisciplinary collaboration was abundant.