Pennsylvania State University
ER-12: Sustainability Immersive Experience

Sustainable, Affordable Housing Solutions (Architectural Engineering) American Indian Housing Initiative (AIHI) is a collaborative research and education program focused on applying sustainable building technologies such as strawbale construction and solar energy systems on American Indian Reservations. AIHI partners with and provides technical assistance to the Northern Cheyenne tribe and other tribal entities to help create sustainable building capacity on reservations. The American Indian Housing Initiative (AIHI) courses are offered to students at Penn State as a three-part series. In the first part (Spring semester) students are introduced to Native American culture, history and current economics, in tandem with hands-on study of sustainable building methods and technologies, home energy systems, and construction project planning. In the Summer they participate in a community-based sustainable construction project on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana. The third part (Fall semester) allows students to document, reflect on and assess the project and the experience, and to make suggestions for future projects. AIHI also provides opportunities for students from other universities and for volunteers. The annual projects are designed, planned, and built by students, faculty, and AIHI collaborators. To date, the completed projects include four homes, an adult education center, an early-childhood learning center, a technology center, and the reservation’s first all-solar home, MorningStar Montana, used by visiting faculty on the campus of Chief Dull Knife College. Established in 2001, AIHI has grown to become a nationally recognized program addressing the acute housing shortage on American Indian reservations. It is a multidisciplinary collaborative effort that engages students, volunteers and tribal partners in sustainable building methods and technologies, concepts of sustainability, and home energy usage on American Indian reservations and in other low-income rural communities. This culturally rich and socially relevant, immersive educational exchange is carried out with a number of mutual partnerships, concentrating on our decade-long relationship with the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe.

Information on other immersive experiences in sustainability are found on the Center for Sustainability website: http://www.cfs.psu.edu/