SAIC students are enormously concerned with the state of the environment. Many students have chosen to design curricular pathways that allow a broad exploration of issues related to the study of resource conservation, environmental activism, and ecological principles. The Sculpture department houses a laboratory called K-Lab, which means the SAIC Knowledge Lab. This is a place where students and faculty collaborate around the topics and processes of knowledge, innovation, and research. They collectively identify important subjects—such as energy, waste, or urban agriculture—undertake in-depth research, and formulate collaborative projects aimed at the production of new knowledge, which can make a meaningful contribution to understanding these issues. The study of Sustainability spans many departments across the school; see course listings below. Please see your advisor to discuss related course listings that pertain specifically to Sustainability.
Cat/Sec#/Credits
(Class Number) | Department/Area of Study | Course Name | Days/Times/Start and End date/Location | Instructor |
|---|
3227 001
3 credits
(647) | Art and Technology
DIY * Art and Science * Sustainability |
Art and Technology: BioArt Studio In BioArt studio students participate in classroom exercises and individual projects exploring the manipulation of living matter. Rudimentary procedures serve as departure points for study of more sophisticated and advanced techniques utilized by artists as well as commercial entities. Subject matter includes core concepts of Food, Fuel and Fun. Specific activities include plant cloning, DNA extraction, gel electrophoresis, microbial culturing and bioinformatics analysis among others. No previous laboratory experience required. | Monday
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Jan 24, 2013 to May 12, 2013
Michigan 426 | Cunningham, Patrick Cyril
|
3311 001
3 credits
(1095) | Liberal Arts
Sustainability |
Science: Marine Biology/Aquatic Realm The oceans and the animals that dwell there are a key resource to planet earth, providing food, medicine, the bases for sacred cultural customs, and much more. However, they are in trouble. This course is a survey of marine ecosystems and the organisms that make them up from diatoms and dinaflagellates, to seahorses and great white sharks. We will discuss the abysmal forecast for the future of the planetary sea and how we can change the outcome now. | Monday
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Jan 24, 2013 to May 12, 2013
116 MI BLDG - 1503 | Hoffman, Michele
|
4018 001
3 credits
(354) | Sculpture
Collaboration * DIY * Sustainability |
Sculpture: KLab:Sustainable Systems Systems are at work all around us. How we sustain ourselves throughout the year involves transportation systems, geologic and climatic processes and a delicate balance of use. Recent environmental events such as the summer drought in the Midwest or massive storms that cripple daily life remind us that we have to adapt to new systems -- if even only temporarily -- through new and old ways of living. This K-Lab class will take field trips and concentrate on studio time with a focus on sustainable, experimental systems. We will study artists' projects and visit local organizations that focus on urban farming, air and water quality, climate concerns, soil conditions and other living systems. We will investigate the nature of living environments -- both human and non-human to discover the limits and possibilities sustainable or experimental systems. Field trips, readings and class discussions will inform our own creative process. | Tuesday
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Jan 24, 2013 to May 12, 2013
Columbus 032 | Ross, Sarah
|
Cat/Sec#/Credits
(Class Number) | Department/Area of Study | Course Name | Days/Times/Start and End date/Location | Instructor |
|---|
3014 001
3 credits
(643) | Fashion
Site and Landscape * Sustainability |
Fashion: Supply and Surplus This advanced course focuses on the making of things through the use of drawing, garment, and sculpture and its use in lifestyle. Outings to a variety of alternative sites are the central part of this class, including thrift stores, warehouses, flea markets, and the rural surroundings. Students investigate the idea of 'Usefulness' as well as function, content, appropriate design, and audience. Emphasis is placed on challenging the narrative definition of 'The art of making things.' | Wednesday
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Aug 28, 2013 to Dec 16, 2013
Sullivan Center 723 | Hamather, Conrad
|
5313 001
3 credits
(1598) | Fashion
Sustainability * Narrative |
Fashion: Adv Materials/Fabrication Std | Wednesday
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Aug 28, 2013 to Dec 16, 2013
Sullivan Center 708 | To Be Announced,
|
3151 001
3 credits
(1118) | Liberal Arts
Sustainability * Interaction and Participation |
Humanities: Top Amer Lit:Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein was perhaps the most spectacular of modernist celebrities. She was Pablo Picasso's best friend. She was a radical avant-garde poet with a best-seller and adoring popular following. She was at various points a writer of lesbian erotica, a patron of and influence upon cubism, a fascist sympathizer, and literary and philosophical experimentalist whose influence is pervasive even today. Her work was so idiosyncratic that it spawned imitators and hecklers in equal measure; it requires an almost complete adjustment of what it means to read, much like cubism changes what it means to view. This course is an introduction to the Stein mode of reading. Prepare to immerse yourself in her pages. You will be rewarded if you do. | Monday
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aug 28, 2013 to Dec 16, 2013
Michigan 620 | Durgin, Patrick
|
3304 001
3 credits
(1181) | Liberal Arts
Sustainability |
Science: Climate Chng:Locally/Globally This course examines global environmental change and the mechanisms by which it occurs. Our examination combines global history of glaciers, ocean currents, tropical storms and hurricanes, drought, and heat waves with surface temperature of both land and ocean. We also explore the debate of human-induced environmental change versus natural variability. How have these changes, whether natural or human-induced, altered the biological environment of animals and plants? How have these changes affected the large cities or small villages where we live and work? What are the benefits? We will draw on the scientific studies of various countries as well as the IPCC 4th Assessment Report to consider all sides of the scientific theory objectively. | Wednesday
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aug 28, 2013 to Dec 16, 2013
Spertus 721 | Dimaio, Richard
|
3311 001
3 credits
(1182) | Liberal Arts
Sustainability |
Science: Marine Biology/Aquatic Realm The oceans and the animals that dwell there are a key resource to planet earth, providing food, medicine, the bases for sacred cultural customs, and much more. However, they are in trouble. This course is a survey of marine ecosystems and the organisms that make them up from diatoms and dinaflagellates, to seahorses and great white sharks. We will discuss the abysmal forecast for the future of the planetary sea and how we can change the outcome now. | Thursday
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aug 28, 2013 to Dec 16, 2013
116 MI BLDG - 1503 | Hoffman, Michele
|
4018 001
3 credits
(815) | Sculpture
Collaboration * DIY * Sustainability |
Sculpture: KLab How do artists, designers and others generate new knowledge? How do breakthrough innovations occur? How can new knowledge come from collaborative research and trandisciplinary inquiry? In today's world of such extraordinary complexity, what are the limits of individual research and singular disciplinary practice and how can alliances outside the art world be made? What is research-based art practice and how can it generate new knowledge? Through readings, discussions, case studies, and in conversation with thinkers in other fields, students will look at knowledge, innovation, and research, both as topics and processes. This collaborative community of inquiry will identify important subjects (such as technology, energy, waste, alternative economies, and urban issues), undertake in-depth research, and formulate transdisciplinary projects aimed at the production of new knowledge which can make a meaningful contribution to the future. | Thursday
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Aug 28, 2013 to Dec 16, 2013
Columbus 032 | Ross, Sarah
|
