Faculty Toolkit

Want to participate in Sustainable Lake County? Here are some project ideas to get you started. There are project ideas for various disciplines, but there is a lot of cross-over and flexibility, so please don't think that you are limited to these ideas or the projects listed in your specific discipline. You are welcome to implement any of these ideas, or develop a Sustainable Lake County project of your own. If you have an idea for a project that you would like to be included on this site, please contact us!

We are accepting submissions from anyone affiliated with CLC, but strongly encourage faculty to integrate a Sustainable Lake County project into their fall 2023 and/or spring 2024 courses. We want to highlight the voices of our diverse student population!

How to Get Involved

Incorporate a project into your classroom and showcase it at our spring Sustainable Lake County Fair! This is an excellent way to for your students to share their work and network with local community organizations.

Some general topics to consider:

• • • Addressing the responsibility for environmental repair as individuals, institutions, and corporations

    • Using the humanities and arts to better understand the significance of sustainability and climate change in Lake County

    • Viewing climate change through the lived Experiences of Lake County residents

    • Highlighting local sustainability initiatives

    • Increasing awareness of sustainability through performance & exhibition

    • Engaging communities in sustainability through workshops, projects & discussions

    • Examining the impact of sustainability on urban areas in Lake County

    • Exploring sustainability in the classroom

Steps to Participate

1. Collect all projects/works to be showcased from your students. Please make sure that you gather the following information:

   • The title of the project.

   • The full name of the student and their preferred pronouns.

   • The student's email, phone number, and address.

   • Name of course, course number, and instructor name.

   • A 2-3 sentence biography, including the student's name, job title (or major), and a brief description of your background. You may include information such as where you live in Lake County, hobbies/interests, or your artistic philosophy.

   • A brief description of the project – e.g., how it was made (art form/medium), purpose/significance of project, rationale for creating the project, etc.

2.  Ask all students/participants to sign the Voices of Lake County waiver to share their work and collect all waivers. Download waiver and fill out submission form here.

3. Reach out to voices.clc@clcillinois.edu to coordinate the collection of works and waivers.

Please coordinate with us prior to March 31, 2024, or as soon as you have a plan!

Project Ideas

Please check back, as this page will be updated throughout the fall 2023 semester.

All Disciplines

• Have your students create digital stories that are representative of their relationship with their environment. The digital stories can be personal narratives or researched stories connected to specific places in Lake County. Or you could have students research an environmental issue connected to Lake County and create a digital story that highlights their research. Click here for sample digital storytelling assignments and resources.

• Collaborate on a "Sustainable Lake County" blog, where each student writes about how our changing climate affects their lives, conducts research about an environmental issue that they are passionate about, or interviews Lake County community members about environmental issues important to them.

• Develop a classroom oral history project. Students can interview family members, neighbors, or community members from previous generations about sustainability or ways that we as a society can advocate for ecological justice.

Art

Method and practice:

Consider methods and practice of sustainability in the arts. How do artists set limits on their materials in order to create the work? Ask students to focus in on a set of materials related to sustainability in their lives, and create new art from those materials. Students can set rules for themselves, such as collecting 1 week’s worth of trash and creating a “self-portrait of refuse.” Or collect items from a specific environment  - park, yard, local stream, somewhere after a public event and recreate a portrait of the space with the items (see Duke Riley below).

ARTIST EXAMPLES:

• • • The artist statement of Selina Trepp, who only uses materials that already exist in her studio, and never buys new ones. Artist statement:  https://img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/7743/assets/JbVBkQRRQtJztMlZ.pdf

    • In DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash, Brooklyn-based artist Duke Riley uses materials collected from beaches in the northeastern United States to tell a tale of both local pollution and global marine devastation.  Riley created sculptural works, wall based works, and video using common items washed up in fishing nets from the commercial fishing industry in the area. http://www.dukeriley.info/death-to-the-living-long-live-trash

Concept and story:

Consider how art reflects topics of sustainability through concept, representation, story, and/or form. Students might consider creating a project that documents a local issue or community members they know who may have been impacted by an environmental issue. Students might consider creating work that is transformed by natural elements in the process. 

ARTIST EXAMPLES

·      LaToya Ruby Frazier’s projects address topics of industrialism, Rust Belt revitalization, environmental justice, access to clean water, workers’ rights and more through photography, video, performance, installation and books. https://latoyarubyfrazier.com/about/ Video resources: https://art21.org/artist/latoya-ruby-frazier/

·      Ana Mendieta’s work includes photography, film, video, drawing, sculpture and site-specific installations. Themes include exile, displacement, and a return to the landscape. Her well-known body of work “siluetas” inscribe her body into the landscape, and are transformed by natural elements. https://www.anamendietaartist.com/work/67f45e26-9b6f-4358-92d8-01f3c4091410-xsyhr-lgr36/67f45e26-9b6f-4358-92d8-01f3c4091410-xsyhr-lgr36/67f45e26-9b6f-4358-92d8-01f3c4091410-xsyhr-lgr36

·      Mark Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge and the natural world. He creates installations of various collections to question the objectivity of the scientific voice in contemporary society. https://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/34-mark-dion/ Video resources: https://art21.org/artist/mark-dion/

Communication/Humanities

• Speech students can perform speech about an environmental issue important to them at the Sustainable Lake County Fair on April 22.

• Have students record a podcast where they interview members of the Lake County community about how climate change or environmental issues specific to Lake County have affected their lives, particularly those whose voices are underrepresented. The podcasts can be embedded on the Voices of Lake County website or we could set up a "listening booth" at the Sustainable Lake County Fair.

• Create mini documentaries – short, 1-2 minute nonfiction narratives that explore questions about sustainability and ecological justice relevant to Lake County populations. These could consist of narrated slideshows or videos.

• Create "Instagram stories" with short narratives centered around a theme or topic relevant to sustainability in Lake County.

Storytelling (Video, photography, media, writing, podcasts)

• Connect with an organization in Lake County that works on sustainability issues or includes them in their mission. Interview the organization to learn more about the issue and what they do. 

Develop a 4-5 minute video that communicates the issue with the public. You can use interview footage, documentary style footage, voiceover, or other strategies we’ve worked on this semester. This can be an issue that your group believes the public should have more knowledge about. If working with a non-profit, you might agree on a message that they would also like the public to know about.  (Modify to fit course objectives and media.)

English

• Create a classroom "Poet-Tree" made out of seeded paper, which will eventually be planted and turned into a campus garden (more information to come).

• Creative writing or composition students can write short personal essays about their connections to the environment or a topic related to sustainability and read or perform them at the Sustainable Lake County Fair.

• Develop a blog or website that showcases sustainability-themed writing assignments.

• Create posters showcasing student projects.

Music

• Music composition students can create songs and/or lyrics that explore sustainability issues.

Theatre

• • Write/perform 10-minute plays that explore our relationship with the environment.