Avery Indermaur
Sustainability Engagement Certificate ePortfolio
ENV 274: People, Plants, and Pollution
Taught by William Wilson; Fall 2019
Overview
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ENV 274 seeks to answer these guiding questions:
What are the unique features of urban environments? What role does “nature” play in cities? What financial arguments underpin allocating public funds to parks and greenspace versus schools and security? Do trees help significantly with urban stormwater/carbon capture/cooling? Does urban nature improve citizens’ lives? Do all socioeconomic groups have equal access to “urban open space”?
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Readings and discussion in the class centered around these questions, covering topics like urban heating and cooling, stormwater, pollution and health, energy and carbon, economic value, and socioeconomic inequities in environmental amenities.
Connection to Sustainable Agriculture
The course featured several food-centered lectures and weaved topics of agriculture and food systems through the class as a whole. As reflected in the syllabus, we had a lecture on Food Factors early in the semester, discussing how food and agriculture have changed over time and how modern agricultural practices contribute to environmental, social, and economic sustainability. This lecture also included a science-forward analysis of agriculture incorporating nutrient cycling and primary productivity, which I valued as a departure from more abstract perspectives. After this lecture, agricultural landscapes were almost always used as a foil to urban ones and became a major topic of conversation throughout the course. The fact that agriculture and food-related topics were prominent in a class with such a broad focus on human-land interactions reinforced the fundamental nature of how humans connect with their environment through food. It drew attention to social sustainability topics like unequal access to healthy food and economic sustainability topics like development of equitable food systems within cities.
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Because of Dr. Wilson’s specific experience farming in Durham, he highlighted local examples of environmental sustainability issues related to agriculture. For instance, we talked about the impact of hog farming on pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and public health, a topic I was excited to delve deeper into having grown up in North Carolina. Thus, Dr. Wilson’s farming perspective and desire to incorporate local examples alongside global ones was valuable, since he helped me situate sustainable agriculture issues close to home.
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Into Durham Final Project
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For our final project in ENV 274, we paired up into groups of three or four students to go out and observe environmental issues related to urbanization in Durham. Each group chose two specific tracts of land and visited them to compare how food, imperviousness, trees, water/streams, parks, and income differed between the two.
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In our tracts, one near Central Campus and one in North Durham, we found significant differences in the type and number of grocery stores, parks, and green space. By exposing us to issues of wealth disparities and environmental injustice in Durham, this project showed us how real-world environmental issues are playing out within miles of Duke's campus. Thinking about food and sustainability, the knowledge that there are many food-insecure areas of Durham right next to so much wealth was eye-opening. Also, visiting these place made me think about ways to increase food access in the Durham community through efforts like community gardens and farmers markets.
