Landmark West! Urban Environmentalists
The Ove Arup Foundation has recently announced support for Urban Environmentalists, a new middle school environmental education curriculum from Landmark West!.
The course is positioned to explore ways in which preservation may offer sustainable solutions to climate pressures. The course designers note the interesting relationship between historic preservation, green architecture, and engineering, with preservation often erroneously characterized as the antithesis of environmentally sound, modern building practices.
Landmark West! is a community-based advocacy organisation formed in 1985 to preserve and protect the architectural heritage of Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Spokesperson Sean Khorsandi says: “In 2023, New York City emitted 51,220,000 tons of carbon dioxide; 71.6% of those emissions came from buildings (both the construction and operation of), meaning that for local students, learning about the intersection of buildings and sustainability is especially prescient.”
The course will take its place in the existing suite of courses about history and archaeology, which the Ove Arup Foundation supported in 2019 and 2023. Like these courses, it is likely to comprise a three-session programme, including a local walking trip, and a final project.
These sessions are aimed at enabling students to engage with those broader concepts of their curriculum by connecting them to their own local neighbourhoods. Course designers hope that this will allow students to engage more deeply with the material.
“Ultimately,” says Khorsandi, “Urban Environmentalists has the same goal that all of our courses aim to cultivate: using the built environment as a classroom to foster a strong sense of community engagement in the neighbourhood’s cultural heritage and urban development.”