A Documentation of the Spring 2012 Projects
Written By:
Alyssa Serpa, Ashleigh Kolla, Karl Oskar Teien,
Matt Bakker, Rachel Li, Paige Frewer,
Stephanie Leung & Torey Hampson
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ............................................................................................. i
About The Change Lab ........................................................................................ i
Student Profiles ................................................................................................... 2
The Opportunity – Setting The Change Lab Context ....................................... 6
Broadly ...................................................................................................................... 6
At SFU ....................................................................................................................... 6
The Spring Projects ............................................................................................ 7
Experiential Education Dialogues ............................................................................. 8
Background and Context........................................................................................... 8
The Dialogues: Approach, Design, Marketing, and Audience................................. 10
Roles and Responsibilities – The Champion Model................................................ 11
Implementation & Day-Of Details ............................................................................ 11
Dialogue Results ..................................................................................................... 12
Why It Worked ......................................................................................................... 13
Room for Improvement ........................................................................................... 15
Recommendations for Future EE pioneers ............................................................. 15
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 16
Student and Facilities Partnership- Hand Dryer Project ....................................... 17
The Opportunity ...................................................................................................... 17
Project Design ......................................................................................................... 17
Project Objectives ................................................................................................... 17
Student Objectives .................................................................................................. 18
Results .................................................................................................................... 18
The Change Lab Documentary Project ................................................................... 19
Starting a Conversation........................................................................................... 19
What is the Problem? .............................................................................................. 20
Personal Values and Virtues ................................................................................... 20
Economic Value on the Environment ...................................................................... 20
Political and Economic Systems ............................................................................. 21
Education For Change ............................................................................................ 21
Connecting the Documentary to the “Campus as a Living Lab” Theme ................. 21
Learning Outcomes ................................................................................................. 22
Links to Documentaries........................................................................................... 23
People Interviewed/Like to Thank ........................................................................... 24
Executive Summary
The 2011-2012 academic year saw the first iteration of the Change Lab, a
student driven, cohort-based course that was run through Simon Fraser
University’s Faculty of Environment. The course was implemented against the
backdrop of popular discussion around sustainability and the role of education,
both in the international higher education community as well as at SFU.
Students of the Change Lab pursued three group projects in the Spring semester
of their program: the Experiential Education Dialogues (EEDs); a Hand Dryers
implementation project (not executed to completion); and the creation of a social
change documentary called “Face Value: For What Its Worth”.
The approach for the EEDs was to be inclusive of the general campus
community, with deliberate targeting of the most relevant audiences first. They
gave special consideration to event scheduling, location choice, and dialogue
design. The events were held on March 9th and 21st in the Halpern Center at
SFU’s Burnaby campus, with dialogue-framing themes of, respectively, “How can
your classroom build healthy communities?” and “How can your classroom foster
ethical entrepreneurship?” The breakout group and report-back sessions for both
events yielded many common ideas for advancing the experiential education
movement’s visibility, support, and accessibility at SFU. Suggestions that
received considerable attention were as follows: empowering instructors and TAs
to take on more mentorship-focused roles with students; addressing the
authoritative nature of student-professor relationships by encouraging more
collaborative, symmetrical dynamics; and establishing an experiential education
working group or office on campus.
The Hand Dryers project sought to connect students with SFU Facilities by
exemplifying how students can apply their learning to the physical campus.
Ultimately, the project was abandoned due to timing and logistical constraints.
The documentary project team created the film “Face Value: For What it’s
Worth”, which seeks to address the question of why our society’s collective
values tend to be at odds with those of its individual members. It also explores
structures and ideas that could potentially be adopted to better align ourselves
with these values. Given the complexity and breadth of these big questions, the
documentary doesn’t aim to provide answers, but rather to provoke thoughtful
inquiry and dialogue. Face Value focuses on interviews with community leaders
and academics, which inquire about their personal values and virtues, economic
value of the environment, political and economic systems, and education for
change. The filmmakers learned how to ask deep and meaningful questions, the
importance of being deliberate about interviewing women and minority groups,
and other technical skills associated with filmmaking.
i
About The Change Lab
The Change Lab is a student driven, cohort-based program that utilizes the
administrative framework of a directed studies course. The Change Lab focuses
on the study and intersections of sustainability, social change, and education.
The course aims to provide students with a unique and empowering experience
that might otherwise be difficult to come by in a traditional degree program.
During its pilot run in the 2011-2012 academic year, the Change Lab was a subproject of the SFU Experiential Education project, which was initiated in 2010 by
two recent SFU graduates, Jennifer McRae and Deanna Rogers. The SFU
Experiential Education project aims to promote alternative learning opportunities
by researching the landscape of experiential education (EE) at SFU, including
identifying existing programs, cataloging them based on type or depth, and
examining cultural attitudes towards EE on campus. As a function of this project,
the Change Lab advocates experiential education by exemplifying the types of
experiences that foster reflective, practical, and empowered learning.
The Change Lab was founded with Sustainable SFU, and partnered with SFU
Sustainability, the Office of the VP Academic, the Faculty of the Environment, the
Institute for Environmental Learning, SFU Career Services, and City Studio.
The course spans two semesters, the Fall term focusing on skill-building, and the
Spring on project implementation. The former includes workshops that provide
students with skills and strategies for effecting social change. The latter serves
as their opportunity to implement these new skills and discoveries as they plan
and coordinate their campus-based community projects. The course supervisors
are best characterized as learning facilitators rather than instructors. Students
exercise a considerable degree of autonomy in guiding and planning the
sessions, and within certain basic parameters, have complete freedom to design
and direct their term projects.
1
Student Profiles
The Change Lab Fall 2011/Spring 2012 cohort consisted of eight students from
various faculties. In order to understand everyone’s intentions and learning
outcomes, each student was asked, “Why did you enroll in the Change Lab?”
and “What are you doing with your learns from the Change Lab?”
Alyssa Serpa | 4th year Environment, Environmental
Geography - Communication, Arts, and Technology,
Music
Like many other individuals of my generation, the
environment is a key area of concern for me.
Although many strides have been made towards
spreading awareness, introducing "greener"
technologies, and creating consumptive outlets for
activism, my feeling is that more needs to be done on
the front of social change towards environmental
affinity. I enrolled in the Change Lab hoping to gain
skills that would aid me in fostering this.
After my experiences in the Change Lab, I’m going to
approach projects knowing the importance of trust,
self-care, and creating inclusive, compassionate
communities to work in.
Ashleigh Kolla | 4th year International Studies,
Sustainable Community Development, Dialogue
It was the first time that students helped to fund a
class to happen, and recent graduates got to create a
space that they saw lacking in their undergrad
degrees.
What am I not going to do? The lessons that I have
gained out of change lab have already made my
other classes more meaningful, but I have also
gained stronger networks in the SFU community and
beyond.
2
Karl Oskar Teien | 4th year International Studies,
Stream 3
I wanted an opportunity to work with sustainability
challenges as part of my studies, and saw the
Change Lab as a great way to network and meet
likeminded classmates. I always felt that commitment
to environmental and sustainability initiatives on
campus took up time that should be spent studying.
This way I could combine both in one, which was a
huge incentive for me to apply.
Since I spent most of my second semester making a
documentary I hope to take on more video projects in
the future as a way of communicating sustainability
messages to a broader audience. I will begin a
Master of Social Entrepreneurship this Fall, and I see
a lot of the lessons learned from workshops and
group cooperation as useful in that context.
Matt Bakker | 4th year Faculty of Environment
In enrolling in Change Lab I was looking to round-out
my education, engaging with real-world problems
and gaining real-world skills. At the same time, I
wanted my educational experience to create a lasting
positive change within my community.
My time in the Change Lab has lead me to adopt a
more holistic perspective on education, ironically,
one in which formal post-secondary is diminished.
Moving forward I will be exploring learning
experience outside the classroom and looking to take
on the challenges facing my community.
3
Rachel Li | 5th year Faculty of Business, Accounting
As a student interested in pursing a career in
corporate social responsibility, I wanted to learn more
about the challenges and opportunities of
sustainability initiatives. I was also really excited to
attend the workshops because it would allow me to
apply what I learned to a real situation.
My experience in the Change Lab has helped me
become a more critical thinker and more mindful of
different needs of individuals and stakeholder groups.
I will use this and the tools and resources that I
learned from the workshops in my future career and
volunteer work.
Paige Frewer | 8th year Environmental Science,
Biology, Dialogue
I wanted to follow up on the personal, professional,
and academic growth that I experienced in the
Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue. I wanted to
develop my skills related to collaboration, group
process and organization, activism, facilitation, and
change management.
I am going to use the skills and experiences I
obtained to leverage my confidence, effectiveness,
and motivation for a lifetime of civically engaged
pursuits. I have learned how possible -- indeed,
necessary -- it is for me to have my work, activism,
art, and personal lives be interconnected and
overlapping. In this way, the Change Lab manifested
itself for me as a metaphor for how I want to live the
rest of my life!
4
Stephanie Leung | 4th year Faculty of Psychology
I wanted to look for another experience in my degree,
and I wanted assignments / course work to have
meaning beyond achieving a specific grade or GPA.
After my Psychology degree here at SFU, I want to
apply sustainability principles to my graphic design
diploma, so that harmful environmental, social, and
economic impact of my designs could be reduced.
Torey Hampson | 5th year General Studies, Dialogue
I enrolled in the Change Lab to be in a classroom
where I felt empowered and engaged due to the
alternative structure of experiential learning courses
(like my Semester in Dialogue). With hope to
discover and learn more about interesting projects
happening in our community. Also, to build
relationships with passionate, active classmates.
I will take my learning and apply it to future volunteer,
school and work opportunities.
Expressing need for and creating safe spaces where
personal, social and environmental sustainability are
cornerstones to the work I do.
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The Opportunity – Setting The Change Lab Context
Broadly
The role that education can play in shifting the world's trajectory towards a
sustainable future is currently the subject of popular debate. Is it the
responsibility of universities to provide students with knowledge, familiarity, and
appreciation of the environment? What is the role of the university in shaping
citizens? In his book Earth in Mind, author David Orr presents the argument that
traditional modes of education enabled humanity to bring itself, and the rest of
the natural world, to the brink of environmental catastrophe, and that these
methods and paradigms are neither fit for, nor capable of, facilitating our
recovery from it. For instance, Orr points to the way in which discipline-focused
learning creates “technician” thinkers who fail to look at problems as holistic
systems, to the detriment of society. Shifting towards interdisciplinary study for all
students, with special attention to the integration of environmental ethics across
subjects, is a suggestion for helping to address this phenomenon. Orr also
advises that academics break away from ideologies that characterize nature as
something to be mastered and dominated, and begin to recognize (and teach)
the need for our respect, honor, and reverence of all levels of the biotic
environment. He suggests that the university institution has a responsibility to
educate, enable, and empower students to build a sustainable society, but that it
must evolve and/or transform in order to realize this potential.
At SFU
On a smaller scale, SFU presents an opportunity to examine how this evolution is
already underway within an individual institution. The Experiential Education
Dialogues had their beginnings in the “Power In” assignment of the Fall semester.
Power In required students to identify five individuals within a specific area of
SFU's operations who were considered to be the top most influential decision
makers, and interview them to establish an understanding of the "climate of
sustainability" at the university. The class broke into three groups that collectively
investigated the stakeholders and leaders associated with SFU’s facilities
6
operations, academic curriculum, and university policy. The curriculum group's
research revealed three key findings that would be particularly influential in the
formulation of the EEDs project: interviewees already had keen interest in
enhancing student engagement with course material; they supported the notion
that the university should produce well-rounded citizens; and they tended to
agree that sustainability should be integrated into curricula across disciplines. But
perhaps the most important discovery of all -- one that was made by all three
Power In groups independently -- was that students have a considerable degree
of influence within the university, and can multiply their power by banding
together. SFU seems to be at a high point of community interest and potential
energy around sustainability and experiential education.
7
The Spring Projects
Experiential Education Dialogues
Background and Context
Prior to coming together to create the Experiential Education Dialogues, the
group was in fact split, and working on two separate projects with similar but
unique objectives and approaches.
Alyssa, Matt, and Torey had been focused on creating conversations among
students, around how to "re-evaluate the pedagogical paradigms at [their] post
secondary institutions" and explore the "inherent connections between education
and sustainability" that they felt were missing from their learning experiences
(quoted from their project mandate). They dubbed the initiative University
ReVISIONS, which aimed to initiate and sustain critical conversations around
sustainability education at SFU beyond the Spring 2012 semester. ReVISIONS
realized one of the several dialogue and social events that were originally
planned, before they joined forces with Paige, Rachel, and Stephanie's group in
early February.
The latter group had similar values and motivations -- to engage the campus
community around sustainability education and build a network that could
support it ongoingly -- but chose to focus on the professorate of SFU. They were
particularly interested in how to inspire and enable instructors to integrate
sustainability concepts into their course curricula. Their strategy for sparking this
kind of curriculum innovation was to approach a handful of instructors and
propose partnering with them to revise existing course assignments, giving them
a "sustainability spin" (eg. 2nd year Business students writing a business plan for
a start-up green energy company). They hoped that this kind of partnership could
not only initiate a movement to begin reframing course content to better reflect
sustainability values, but that it could also exemplify a novel partnership between
students and faculty in collaboratively designing coursework.
8
In the early stages of project development, an opportunity arose for the facultyfocused group to partner with Sarah St John, the SFU campus coordinator for the
goBEYOND Campus Climate Network, who had already been developing ideas
for engaging faculty in dialogue around experiential education. To explore how
their efforts could be combined, and what strategies or projects might be the
most useful for SFU, they arranged to consult with the Centre for Dialogue's Mark
Winston, a long-time campus leader in the EE movement. From this meeting
came a number of valuable insights that would mark a pivotal moment in the
semester, namely that a student-administration-faculty partnership would provide
the most unique and robust framework for building longevity into an EE plan at
SFU.
With a new appreciation for how the project’s effectiveness could be maximized
by engaging and connecting all three of these levels of campus community
members, the two groups decided to merge. They promptly convened to
negotiate a unified vision and goal for a joint project, which can be summarized
by the following points:
•
To promote the joy of learning and teaching within the SFU community by
getting students excited about and engaged in their education;
•
To help build student-professor relationships that address and reimagine
conventional power dynamics;
•
To prepare students for a world that demands ecological consciousness
and dynamic problem solving skills;
•
To promote, share, and connect with existing opportunities in EE while
envisioning new possibilities for SFU.
9
The Dialogues: Approach, Design, Marketing, and Audience
The EED group sought to maximize the effectiveness of their project by
approaching event design, scheduling, and marketing strategically. In
consideration of our audience's busy schedules, we held the events over lunch
and limited their length to 1.5 hours each. We chose to host them at Halpern
Centre, which holds the legitimacy we felt was important for enticing
administration and faculty away from their desks.
To market the events, we partnered with a graphic designer (friend and fellow
SFU student Avery Kwong) to craft an eye-catching poster that was sufficiently
informative, thorough, and professional looking. We began reaching out to faculty
and administrative staff that were known allies (eg. Mark Winston and Dan
Burns) to get feedback on our preliminary ideas for dialogue-framing themes. As
mentioned previously, the winners were “How can your classroom create healthy
communities?” and “How can your classroom foster ethical entrepreneurship?”
In an effort to create a welcoming, hospitable, and engaging environment for our
guests, we planned for student and faculty storytellers to open the dialogues by
sharing some special experiences of EE. For the dialogues themselves, the
"Appreciative Inquiry" model was adopted, so as to capitalize on participants'
creative potential. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) dialogue emphasizes the importance
of focusing on the existing successes, opportunities, and leverage points of the
topic at hand; that is, how is EE at SFU working, and why? And how might these
best practices be scaled up or transferred over to other programs and Faculties?
It is often tempting to focus on all the things that don't work about a system, and
get stuck on the barriers rather than the opportunities. The AI approach
represented the EED group's desire to flip the traditional problem-solving model
on its head; to spur new ideas and catalyze a network of interested participants
into action.
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Roles and Responsibilities – The Champion Model
The EED group adopted a “champion model” as our method for dividing roles
and responsibilities, as we agreed that consensus-based decision making on
every single task would hinder the efficiency and flexibility of our process. This
model enables champions to make executive decisions on the smaller issues,
which freed up group meeting time for matters that required input from everyone.
We assigned task champions based on people’s interests and strengths: Alyssa
managed storyteller recruitment, as she was committed to ensuring equal
representation by faculty and students; Torey took on catering, as she had
previous experience in that area; Stephanie was a natural champion of photo
documentation, as photography is a passion of hers; Rachel played to her
strengths as an organizer, choosing to champion logistics; Paige volunteered to
take on marketing and advertising, as she had interest in broadening her existing
experience; and finally, Matt championed communication, a role with which he
was familiar after having helped to plan a conference at SFU earlier in the
semester.
Implementation & Day-Of Details
The following are the details of the two dialogue events:
Dialogue #1:
•
Who: SFU students, faculty, and administration
•
What: How can your classroom build a healthy community
•
When: March 9, 2012 from 12:00pm – 1:30pm
•
Where: Halpern Center Room 126 at SFU Burnaby campus
Dialogue #2:
•
Who: SFU students, faculty, and administration
•
What: How can your classroom create ethical entrepreneurs
•
When: March 21, 2012 from 12:00pm – 1:30pm
•
Where: Halpern Center Room 126 at SFU Burnaby campus
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On the day of both of the dialogues we met at 9AM. We wrote out the main
principles of the AI model, as well as our guiding questions, on large flip boards.
We also finalized the PowerPoint presentation that would be used in the
dialogue’s introductory address. We discussed how the RSVP list would work,
how participants should be divided among break-out groups, and how to facilitate
the break-out group discussions. We arrived at Halpern at 11:30AM to ensure the
requested set-up was complete (chair and table arrangements, AV equipment
and catering).
For both dialogues, our start was delayed by 5-10 minutes so that we could
accommodate late-comers and better fill the room. The MCs introduced The
Change Lab, GoBEYOND, and the dialogue’s intentions and structure. As an icebreaker exercise, we asked the question “What can you leave behind in order to
more present today?” Participants then broke out into small groups of 6-8 to
discuss the guiding questions using the AI framework. Afterwards, participants
reconvened for an at-large report back session on the standout ideas from their
dialogues, and to share what they would be taking away from their experience.
Participants were encouraged to linger after the event to network and connect
with others. After all the guests left, the group organizers had an elaborate
debrief of the event to discuss what worked, and how things could be improved
for next time.
Dialogue Results
We encountered remarkably common threads in the outcomes of both dialogues.
The most emphasized ideas and suggestions for advancing the EE movement at
SFU are as follows:
•
Increase availability and accessibility of programs that enable students to
engage with their communities for course credit
o
Eg. Semester in Dialogue, field studies, cohort programs, School of
Interactive Arts, TRIUMF, Sustainable Community Development,
Action Research Exchange, Engineers Without Borders
12
•
Enhance mentorship programs
o
Empower and train Teaching Assistants to be dialogue facilitators
(rather than focusing tutorials on simply reviewing lecture material)
•
o
Provide opportunities for recent graduates to be mentors
o
Provide credit incentives for upper year students to be mentors
Integrate self-reflection exercises into course requirements
o
Peer teaching
o
In-class storytelling
o
Foster class environments that encourage risk-taking in learning
o
Holistic approach to educating students
§
Greater focus on student wellbeing as an indicator of
meaningful, lasting learning
•
Facilitate student-instructor collaboration for negotiating learning
outcomes and assessment methods
o
Work-arounds or restructuring to address complex bureaucracies
and curriculum inflexibility
•
Support interdisciplinary collaboration on learning opportunities
o
•
Build the intra-faculty and intra-student networks
“Teachers should be here to teach”
o
Instructor recruitment that focuses on aptitude with/commitment to
teaching over research
o
Provide greater opportunities and incentives for instructors to
engage in teaching/leadership training workshops
§
•
Eg. Teaching and Learning Centre
Increase the availability of cohort or multi-term programs
o
Facilitates camaraderie/community building and meaningful student
engagement with course material
§
Eg. the Change Lab
•
Establish an EE working group, resource centre, action group, or office
•
Better outreach and communication of EE opportunities to first and second
year students
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Why It Worked
Participant feedback on the dialogues, as well as our extensive group debriefs,
seemed to confidently suggest that the EED project had materialized as a great
success.
One dialogue philosophy that seems to appropriately reflect our events is that
“you'll always have the right people in the room". This phrase essentially implies
that the participants who show up will self-select, and make for a group of
especially invested, engaged individuals that can generate stimulating and
meaningful dialogue. Our marketing strategy -- to first target individuals who had
previously expressed interest in experiential education -- also played an
important role in determining the participants.
Another strength of our group was a mutual trust in each other’s capacity to
deliver on our assigned roles, and a prioritization of clear and honest
communication in the event of process hiccups. Task delegation was particularly
effective in fostering accountability and action.
We feel that our dialogue design and facilitation approach also played significant
roles in shaping the positive outcomes of our events. We encouraged breakout
group facilitators to only loosely guide the discussions, focusing their direction as
necessary but trusting that they'd go where they needed to. This freed up
participants' creativity and alleviated the pressure of potential expectations.
Certain logistical features also worked well: keeping the dialogues "short and
sweet"; holding them over lunch hour and providing refreshments; and booking
Halpern as our host venue. Another winning element seemed to be the icebreaker exercise, adopted from Stina Brown's Fall workshop with the Change
Lab, which had participants share with their neighbour what they were willing to
"leave behind order to be more present" in the session. These relatively candid
exchanges seemed to emotionally and intellectually ground people before they
began engaging in their break out groups.
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Room for Improvement
With the dialogues’ completion, and their positive impacts seeming to reverberate
through the conversations and corridors of SFU, came time for reflection upon
areas where we could have done things better or differently. Judged against the
goals we established at the outset, we have identified several areas that could
have been improved. While the dialogues indeed left SFU students excited about
and engaged in their education, we didn’t exactly establish a tangible plan for
capitalizing on this momentum. Opportunities for continued engagement could be
as elaborate as an established working group, or as straightforward as a list of
existing resources at SFU. We have found that this problem is also present in
regards to fostering stronger relationships between students and professors. The
dialogues acted to connect these groups, but there was no solid strategy for
supporting these relationships henceforth.
Also, while the dialogues succeeded in creating a host of new EE ideas, a more
thorough survey of the EE opportunities that currently exist at SFU was
warranted. As an example, Work Integrated Learning (WIL) contacted the
dialogue group some time into the planning process, as they were unaware of
what the EEDs were or what they aimed to accomplish. Once connected, WIL
provided the dialogue group with an invaluable list of contacts within the
Business Faculty, which assisted with the marketing of the second dialogue.
Recommendations for Future EE pioneers
Upon reflecting on this project and its results, we would like to make
recommendations on how the next Change Lab cohort (or other interested
groups) could move forward:
•
Continue efforts to engage students on the subjects of EE and
sustainability education. Students are largely unaware of the power that
their collective voice has in affecting the University, and empowering
students with this knowledge has the potential to create a groundswell of
support.
15
•
Establish a working group or network that promotes and supports the
practice of EE. This working group would ideally include members from
across all Faculties, and be open to staff, administration, faculty members,
and students. When establishing this group, existing frameworks such as
the SFU Senate Committees should be considered.
•
Increase awareness regarding existing EE opportunities at SFU,
particularly for first and second year students who are better able to adapt
their academic paths to include them.
•
Encourage students to engage with their local communities as a way to
apply their education. This can lead to powerful symbiotic relationships
with community organizations.
•
Create safe learning spaces where risk and failure is permitted and
accepted as part of the education experience.
Conclusion
The Experiential Education Dialogues were envisioned as a first step towards
revitalizing and revolutionizing learning at SFU. By connecting interested
members of the SFU community and engaging students to take a more active
role in their education, we aimed to foster a network of students, staff,
administration, and professors dedicated to the promotion of EE. The dialogues
made great strides towards this end, bringing together a diverse set of actors for
an inspiring two sessions, and highlighting once again that the climate is right for
continued action and progress in the area of EE at SFU. Moving forward, the
recommendations that came out of the dialogues represent the next steps in
creating, promoting, and strengthening experiential education at SFU.
Importantly, we must remember that the change we are seeking is a process and
one likely to be gradual. As such, perspectives that acknowledge longer timelines
in relation to the transitory nature of the student population are crucial to ensure
the success of what can only be regarded as the next great step in the evolution
of post-secondary education.
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Student and Facilities Partnership- Hand Dryer Project
The Opportunity
In the Change Lab’s Fall term, one of the three Power In groups focused on SFU
Facilities Services. After conducting their five interviews, it became apparent to
the group (and these discoveries were shared with the class) that Facilities was
keen on having more student input as how they could improve their efforts and
enhance the student experience with the university’s built environment. With a
desire to improve the campus’ performance on certain sustainability indicators,
Rachel and Ashleigh focused on one “low hanging fruit” area: washroom hand
dryers.
Project Design
The idea was to install two Dyson Airblades into one women’s washroom and
one men’s, both located in the Academic Quadrangle, and assess their
effectiveness in mitigating paper towel consumption by measuring the Airblade
usage. We would use these washrooms as the experiment group, and two AQ
washrooms of similar size (one women’s and one men’s) as the control group. If
a superior product is offered, will washroom user behaviour favour it?
Furthermore, although the Dyson Airblade is often perceived as being more
“environmentally friendly” due to the fact that it uses air instead of paper to dry
hands, we wanted to assess it against some other options by analyzing the
product’s life cycle, energy use, and hygiene implications.
Project Objectives
•
To understand behaviour change of students (What do students normally
use? What did students use today? Why? Was it convenience, trendiness,
environmental concerns, simply to try something new?)
•
To understand students’ perception of the sustainability of various hand
drying methods
•
To establish a platform for student engagement with university operations
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Student Objectives
•
To design an experiment
•
To understand life cycle analysis
•
To collect and analyze data
•
To create a self-directed and self initiated project
•
To practice communication skills with professionals and university staff
Results
In the end, the project was not seen to completion due to difficulties that arose
related to commitment of the group members, along with some other
unanticipated challenges. The other Change Lab projects that these same
students were involved in ended up demanding greater investment than originally
anticipated. Also, the energy-use assessment plan was found to be unattainable
at this time, due to the nature of the electrical wiring in the AQ washrooms. (In
response, we tried to use a ratio of paper towel use to toilet paper use, the latter
acting as our constant variable, to assess any behavioural change in the Dyson
washrooms.) But, as it would turn out, there were unanticipated changes to
Facilities’ timelines related to the installation of the Airblades. We had dedicated
three weeks to the trial period, but the bathrooms were not open in time.
Although the full experiment and analysis did not materialize as we’d originally
hoped, we were successful in connecting with Facilities and eliciting their support
for this project. One of our former Change Lab teammates, Jacob (who only
completed the Fall semester), had previously written proposal to change all of the
campus washroom hand dryers to Dyson Airblades as a part of a Facilitiesstudent challenge. His proposal had earned him second prize. Jacob’s earlier
efforts, and Rachel and Ashleigh’s Hand Dryers quasi-project of the Spring term,
demonstrated that Facilities is indeed approachable to student ideas. This
highlighted a potential learning opportunity for future Change Lab cohorts or
other EE-engaged students.
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The Change Lab Documentary Project
Face Value
For What it’s Worth
Karl Oskar Teien and Ashleigh Kolla
Starting a Conversation
Face Value was created with the intention of leading the viewer through four
different themes to explore the (dis)connection between our personal values and
the values we express as a society through our economic and political systems.
Our central question is: What is it about the way we structure our society that
creates a disconnection between personal and common/shared values? We
discussed in particular whether there are systems we could adopt that allow for a
more sustainable way to run our society. This may sound like quite an
undertaking; indeed it would be. But the project’s goal was not to provide a
comprehensive analysis and understanding of these ideas -- much less to
suggest that there are simple answers -- but instead to start some provocative
conversations with a variety of people who have interesting perspectives on this
topic.
We looked at the Enbridge pipeline as a specific, tangible example of the
"structures our society creates" (ie. investing in carbon intensive infrastructure)
and how, even though many people feel that this project does not reflect their
personal values, our political and economic structures still seem to support it.
The film title Face Value carries a double meaning. Not only do we tend to get
stuck in an economic system that only considers the face value of our
environment, and not its “true” value in the broadest sense, but it also suggests
that a transition to a sustainable society will require us to face our personal
values, and ensure that we create a democratic process in which individual
values are represented in the decisions we make as a society.
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What is the Problem?
What is it about the way we structure our society that creates a disconnection
between personal and common/shared values?
We came into the process of creating this documentary recognizing our bias
towards the view that our personal and shared values do not reflect society’s
values. We wondered why we live in a society that does not reflect our individual
views, and why there was such a notable disconnect. This theme of our
documentary was something that we articulated out of our experiences in the
workshops in the first semester, as well as with our cornerstone course text,
David Orr’s Earth in Mind. After several great conversations about our ideas
around this central question, we decided to go out into the community and
question key members of the community to elicit their ideas and opinions.
The Northern Gateway Pipeline (NGP) Project was an interesting central focus. It
provided us with the opportunity to focus on renewable energy as a way to
transition to sustainable societies.
Personal Values and Virtues
We started our inquiry asking our interviewees about their personal values, not
specifically around NGP. A theme that arose was that the individual needs to see
him/herself represented in the system at large, in order to feel that they can
participate in the process. We asked our interviewees how they connected their
work with their passions. Some felt like these two things were in line, while others
felt that they needed to separate the two.
Economic Value on the Environment
We discussed the economic value of environment to better understand how, or if,
we could use market factors to find better price signals that reflect non-monetary
capitals.
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Political and Economic Systems
Having questioned whether the economic value of products was accurate, the
next step was to question the political and economic systems that organize and
dictate these prices. Accordingly, we asked people if they saw their values in the
systems that organized their lives, and what, if anything, was missing in order for
them to see themselves reflected in the system.
Education For Change
We wondered where education lies in relation to creating sustainable systems
that reflect people’s values. We recognized experiential learning as a prime
opportunity to educate and empower people to create systems that embody their
values.
Connecting the Documentary to the “Campus as a Living Lab” Theme
Through the process of creating this documentary, we’ve learned valuable
lessons concerning how to connect the classroom to the community and how that
translates to better experiences for students. We were able to connect with
community members because the project was undertaken under the auspices of
an SFU class. As students, we had more leverage to question people who we
may not have been able to connect with otherwise.
We hope in the future that the Carbon Neutral Initiative or Sustainable SFU holds
a screening of this documentary, allowing it to connect people at SFU and the
wider community. In this way the documentary will become an avenue through
which future students can engage with EE and the Living Lab concept.
So often, students think about these questions, write a paper about the findings,
and, invest sincere heart into composing a paper that is destined for no more
exposure than to the course instructor or TA. We wanted to go bigger; this
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project and its message is communicated in a medium that is both appealing an
accessible, and permits our learning from this past semester to be easily shared.
Since much of our network is comprised of SFU students, we believe that this
film will have a real and positive impact on our campus. When they see the
documentary, we hope that students will question some of the same things we
did as we made it, and perhaps experience a similar quality of personal and
philosophical growth as a result.
Both of us have learned how to ask deep questions, obtained technical filming
and editing techniques, and acquired skills around how to effectively interview
people. It was very empowering to ask people what they valued in the community,
and resulted in the strengthening of our networks, both personally and SFU EErelated. We were able to truly use the campus as a living lab, ambitiously taking
on a documentary project when neither of us had previously been trained in the
film medium. It taught us an invaluable lesson: use the space of the classroom to
explore the kind of learning that you’re passionate about and want to develop.
Learning Outcomes
Telling a story and asking good questions. At the outset of this project, we had
the opportunity to talk to some people about how to ask good questions. One
memorable conversation was with Munisha Tumato, a freelance journalist; she
taught us about the importance of cutting clips that you love to have a succinct
message.
Finding gender balance. We realized that, in order to have gender balance in the
film, it was important to be very intentional about including women and minority
groups in the interviews.
Technical Documentary Skills. From finding suitable locations for sound and
lighting, to editing and creating a storyboard, this project has given us valuable
transferable skills that can be used in other contexts.
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Links to Documentaries
Face Value; For What it’s Worth Documentary is searchable on Youtube.
Karl Oskar and Ashleigh both went through processes of exploration and
discovery in the making of this film. To capture insight into their personal
journeys, and to get a behind the scenes look at how their learning unfolded,
follow the links below:
Ashleigh Kolla Personal Reflection:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuaXK1APiVw&feature=player_embedded
Karl Oskar Teien Personal Reflection:
https://vimeo.com/39606884
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People Interviewed/Like to Thank
Lee Brain – Climate Activist / “Son of an Oil Man”
Robyn Ashwell – Shift Coop Trike Delivery
Melissa Frost – Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation
Marc Lee – Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Jordan Bober and Andrew Perry – Seedstock Local Currency
Jonn Axsen – SFU REM Professor
John Bogardus – SFU Sociology Senior Lecturer
David Isaac – Raincity Strategies
Morten Jerven – SFU International Studies Economist
Sean Devlin – TruthFool Communications
Naomi Klein – Journalist / Climate Activist
Torey Hampson – Change Lab Peer
Gala Milne – SFU Student
Sarah Stoner – SFU Sustainability Coordinator
Ben Porcher – Dogwood Initiative
Munisha Tumato – Freelance Journalist
Julien Thomas – Documentary Advisor
Paige Fewer – Change Lab Peer
Stephanie Leung – Change Lab Peer
Rachel Li – Change Lab Peer
Alyssa Serpa – Change Lab Peer
Matt Bakker – Change Lab Peer
Tana Jukes – SFU Student
Taylor Smith – SFU Student
Deanna Rogers – SFU Change Lab Facilitator
Jenn Mcrae – SFU Change Lab Facilitator
David Zandvliet – SFU Education Professor
Maziar Kazemi – SFU Student
Aateka Shashan – SFU Student
Sustainable SFU
Music by:
Leo Aldrey
Kai Gundelach
Helios
Photos by:
International League of Conservation Photographers
Thomas P. Peschak (Save our Seas Foundation)
Cristina Mittermeier
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