Kermit Isn't Always Right

  This group of ITC students are a really good group and that extends to our time in the classroom. Wednesday and Thursday we were in the classroom for 9 hours and they stuck with it well. In fact, they are great about participation and discussion and today I will find out how good they are about the writing assignments. I have been quite pleased with the effort I am seeing from them thus far, having a good deal of energy even with the alternative approaches to classroom time. As always it comes down to my inability to remember names easily that is the hardest. I have got maybe about half of them right now. Somewhere in Brussels the rest will click, at least I hope.
  Kermit says its not easy being green, but Freiburg really makes it seem easy. After the three hours of class yesterday I had the students do walking tours of Reiselfeld and Vauban, both of which are very green-conscious. They are planned communities that have gone to using a lot of solar energy, rainwater collection, high levels of recycling, and efforts to reduce air and noise pollution. Both communities have been around for only a short time, approximately a decade or less. All of the effort is not only visible, but very much supported and encouraged by the city itself. It is amazing what can be done when the effort and financing is put in up front. In addition to areas that are energy neutral in these areas, there are also parts that have become energy positive, producing more energy than they actually use. While we can't speak to the long term for these communities, it is still phenomenal to see what can be done when people are thoughtful about energy consumption.
  I will also give them major thumbs up for the idea that being green and energy efficient isn't just for the wealthy or well-off. Both communities contain a mix of privately market-purchased residences and also subsidized housing. They are trying to be an integrated community and are also backing that up with trying to ensure that a sense of community is created among everyone who is living there. Very few places can be said to have such a diversity of income levels in their neighborhoods. The Vauban even has an old Roma camp on the edges, which looks like it was there prior to the development of the Vauban community as a whole. Rather than shoo them out to further outskirts of town, it seems that it has just become a part of the area itself as well. So much to be impressed with about the efforts that the city makes and I am finding that many of the students genuinely enjoyed the exploration.