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During the last week of October, GSF President, Dr. Chris Harth, who also serves as Director of Global Studies and World Languages at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and helps coordinate the School’s sustainability initiative, was the keynote speaker at annual membership meeting of the Mississippi Chapter of the United States Green Building Council.  A relatively new chapter of this growing nation-wide organization, which is responsible for LEED Certification, the group had more than fifty people in attendance, including architects, designers, manufacturers, suppliers, and other concerned citizens.

Drawing on a related presentation during St. Andrew’s Parents Association’s “Living Green” event last spring, Dr, Harth first provided some context about the shifting conditions – demographic, economic, political, and ecological – and then made a case for adaptive education, which involves recognizing these changes and preparing young people for the challenges and opportunities of living together on a dynamic, increasingly connected, and shared planet.  At the heart of this argument is the notion of “glocal citizenship,” which Dr. Harth has been putting into practice lately at St. Andrew’s with an array of local service-learning  programs involving international guests working side-by-side with St. Andrew’s students and faculty.   

After highlighting some of impressive accomplishments at St. Andrew’s over the last two years – including instituting a community-wide recycling program, integrating alternative ecological topics into the curriculum in all three divisions, participating in the Envirothon Competition, and being named the Mississippi Going Green Champion by WLBT and the MS Department of Environmental Quality – Dr. Harth’s presentation closed with a list of possible future steps, such as entering the Green Cup Challenge, introducing new solar- and wind-powered learning stations, incorporating “green design” into new construction, and weaving ecology, sustainability, and glocal service into the fabric of domestic and international travel programs.    

For more information about these programmatic initiatives or about the presentation, which is available here, please contact Dr. Harth.