Welcome to the blog of Otago Polytechnic's Sustainable practice departmental Champions

The purpose of this blog is to share stories, resources, teaching and learning, examples of sustainable practice happening in Otago Polytechnic's academic departments.


Champions will post 3-5 examples per year of what is happening in the classrooms of their departments.


These posts will share teaching resources, students response, projects and assignments, examples of how it fits into the curriculum etc.


These quality examples may also be used by the Otago Polytechnic marketing department to share these stories with the community.


Enjoy.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Update from the School of Veterinary Nursing

The  School of Veterinary Nursing have been active over the last 2 years at least improving their sustainable practices and embedding it into programmes.  The further along the road we get, the more we are learning and the more we want to do. 

We have lots happening in our school, and in October we are having visits to our planning days by 2 sustainability experts.  Our goal is to next year have a sustainability audit undertaken so that we can have a clear vision of what else we need to do.

In the meantime I wanted to share with your our Sustainability tips of the week.................

These are shared with all our students via moodle and staff via email and insite.  Don;t forget to sign up and follow it. 

Kind Regards
Francesca Matthews
Programme Manager and Sustainability Champion
School of Veterinary Nursing

Friday, May 6, 2011

OISA strengthens it commitment to sustainable practice

OISA continues to embrace sustainable practise.

Andy Thompson, who works for the Otago Institute of Sport and Adventure (OISA) as the Program Manager for the Diploma in Outdoor Leadership and Management (DOLM) initiated a gardening project for his students earlier ths year. More specifically it involved planting a
variety of vegetables (see adjacent photos) on campus as part of the Otago Polytechnic (OP) Living Campus project. Michelle Ritchie (Manager, OP Living Campus) was very supportive as OP has a limited budget for activities relating to the Living Campus. The result is that the campus saves money and the students increase their gardening skills (a very sustainable approach within itself!).

The planting work completed by the students is
credited towards their Enviromental Science yr1 and 2 courses. DOLM lecturer Julie Grant plays a key role in guiding and supporting the students. Guest lecturers in these courses include people such as Nicola Bould (Coordinator, OP Sustainable Champions) and Michelle Ritchie. Recently they have learnt about and discussed soil quality as well as furtheirng their understanding of how a living campus operates, its benefits and overall importance in the promotion of sustainable practice.