University of Michigan
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Example 1: Sustainable Business in Latin America. Through a series of lectures from distinguished INCAE Business School Professors and Costa Rican government officials, stimulating class discussions, and research projects, students will learn about sustainable business development, social enterprise, and Latin American business strategies. Beyond the classroom, learning will be further facilitated during interactive visits to companies in local free trade zones, civil society organizations, and ecotourism excursions. By the end of the course, students will have an in-depth understanding of the impact of socially, culturally, environmentally, and economically sustainable business practices within developing Latin American markets.

Example 2:Detroit, MI Sustainable Neighborhoods: Experiential Learning & Active Engagement in Detroit: Learn hands-on about sustainability issues facing Southeast Michigan through this four-credit, undergraduate course. Through this unique experiential course, participants will learn about: The confluence of food systems, the built environment, transportation, and social justice in urban settings; the concept and realities of sustainability in urban environments; ways communities and neighborhoods can respond to changing environments; Detroit’s history and culture. The concept of sustainability is complex. Not only does it include multiple environmental, social, and economic dimensions, but it also depends a great deal on the context and conditions of the sustainability issue being considered. The view of sustainability is further complicated when applied to a declining urban center like Detroit, where issues of social justice are intimately entwined with concerns for environmental quality and the quest for economic stability. Interestingly, in Detroit and other declining rust-belt cities, hardships have opened new frontiers in what constitutes sustainable development. Cities like Detroit are in the process of redefining a different approach of how residents collaborate to create bottom-up solutions to resolve seemingly insurmountable problems. As a result, the movement toward more sustainable neighborhoods in this context requires careful, in-depth assessment of the local culture, the economic conditions, and environmental realities at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. In the "Sustainable Neighborhoods" course, we will focus our attention on how issues of sustainability and social justice co-mingle around the topics of transportation systems, food systems, and the built environment.

Example 3: Toward a Sustainable Environment in Light of the Changing Face of Rural & Urban China: In collaboration with the Beijing University of Technology's College of Architecture and Urban Planning, program participants research, document, and react to the changing face of rural China in one specific locale: the Shang Shui Guo Village in the Pearl River Valley Township near Beijing. Research will lead to the development of a new rural prototype house as well as a series of specific recommendations on how to convert the historic structures and environment to meet modern standards. In an era where it has become clear that massive urbanization is becoming less and less sustainable (environmentally, economically, socially, and culturally), a larger aim of this project— which turns its attention toward the rural village (away from the long held architect’s obsession with urban-ism)— is to find ways to create a rural environment that is more viable as a contemporary place for human habitation.

http://michiganross.umich.edu/initiatives/sustainable-business-latin-america