hand-carved wooden refined designs
This is us: the EcoReps. The crazy, passionate, talented group of students tasked with changing Dartmouth for the better. We spent the fall learning how to be a team of effective problem solvers and design researchers. How do we figure out what to tackle? Last year's EcoReps left big shoes to fill, as they had successfully implemented an "I'd Tap That" campaign that single-handedly changed the way students treat bottled water on campus, ushering in the new age of nalgenes.
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All around us we saw disenchantment with the way relationships are formed on campus, so we decided to tackle social sustainability. Over the winter, we did a lot of user research and brainstorming to come up with what makes a space inviting, welcoming, and self-sustaining for large numbers of students.
We realized that social satisfaction stems largely from feelings of ownership. If people feel attached and invested in a space, they will want to keep it around and will work to make it better. In the spring, we launched "Make This Home," a social sustainability initiative where we worked to host a series of events that demonstrated this principle, showing that people will come and use a space if they feel that it is theirs. Our most successful event was transforming a simple campus crossroads (Fairchild Tower) into a vibrant student space for studying and socializing.
brainstorming ways to improve social sustainability
the organizers of a Make This Home event in Fairchild Tower
a demonstration of the demand for student-owned spaces on campus and the physical lack thereof
a poster for a non-greek event during Green Key