This My Nature Outing project inquires into questions surrounding sustainable design and examines local efforts at the University of Pittburgh. My Nature Outing is sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh's John C. Mascaro Center for Sustainable Engineering and the Office of the Provost's Year of Data and Society.
What is sustainable design? What does it do? How does it work? Why is it important? How can we increase interest in sustainable design?
Pollinator Gardens have plants that polliators can easily get to and pollinate
Rain Gardens collect water and drain it so that places don't get flooded
Trees canopys reduces temperatures
My favorite sustainable design is bikes. Bikes are a good method of transportation that dont't use gas and reduces traffic on the streets. The more people we get riding bike, the less air polution we have in the world. Also bikes are fun. We could make biking even more efficiant by adding more bike lanes througout the streets so that their are less accidents.
Outside of Bike Cave
Bikes in Bike Cave
Ramp for bikes and more accesibility
I interviewed James. We discussed what he learned on the sustainable design walk. This is important because it shows what someone learned but from a different perspective.
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Pollinator Gardens have plants that polliators can easily get to and pollinate. How it works is that people plant plants that atract pollinators and gives them an easy way to pollinate. Its important because a lot of bees are dying right now and they are really important in our ecosystem. They provide 75-90% of our fruits and vegetables. A way we could inprove this is by having a larger amount of Pollinator Gardens so more bees could pollinate and survive.
Rain Gardens collect water and drain it so that places and sewers don't get flooded. What happends is that the plants in the garden absorb the rain water so that the large amount of it doesn't go into the sewer system, flood it, and pollute the rivers. Its important becuause Pittsburgh has a lot of rain and if we had no Rain Gardens, all the water would go into the sewers and flood them. Then that polluted water would go into the rivers and contaminate them and the things that live in them. We could inprove this by making the size of the gardens bigger so they can absorb more water.
Trees canopys reduces temperatures. The Arbor Day Foundation report that trees can reduce 2-4 degrees Fahrenheit. This is important because more people die from heat stroke than from cold exposure each year. Increasing the number of trees we have in the city is going to be important because the world is getting hotter from climate change so the more trees, the less hot its going to be.