School of Sustainability Graduate Culminating Experiences

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a non-profit organization that prides itself in “responding to the world’s worst humanitarian crises”. Through its New Roots program, IRC is using an aquaponics urban garden incubator site “to train refugee farmers in aquaponics agriculture and good business practices in the United States.” The site is an example of the conversion of brownfield into “healthfields” and sustainability and resilience initiatives including the Year of Healthy Communities Program-2017, the Maricopa County Food Systems Coalition, and other community health initiatives that involve major partners including the City of Phoenix.

Entering into the next development phase, IRC wants the site to be an opportunity for demonstrating some of the most innovative approaches to water reuse while contributing to a sustainable food network in the neighborhood and in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. One component created to support this goal is an intervention manual identifying water-sensitive design strategies and ways to scale or transfer to other IRC sites. As such, my project identified and framed guidelines for the selected strategies to use in addition to steps for scaling, transferring, and creating a “location” where all of this information could be held for future reference. The manual content was created around each strategy which included identifying general legal practices in Phoenix related to each strategy, defining key terminologies, detailing water budgets, and research gaps to overcome.

The commonly accepted goal of sustainability, to fulfill our current needs and maintain the worlds systems so future generations can also fulfill their needs, unifies efforts efficiently and aligns people with future thinking. But the concepts related, and their applications are fairly ambiguous in guiding people to what exactly they can do to make choices for sustainability. Individuals choices make a difference, adding up to societal shifts that change the world for the better. In such a complex world, there is a clear need for guidance through these systems. Sustainability and Resilience (S&R) is an optimistic podcast that journeys through thought-provoking science-based sustainability challenges with a bit of comedic relief. Listeners are entertained and become empowered to know what sustainable choices are, and why they are sustainable. S&R podcast uses systems thinking to pinpoint, realistic actionable items that empower listeners with a broad-spectrum sustainability knowledge for making everyday choices. Foundational research proved, developed and formed the idea of the podcast. Recording research lead to the ability to record test episodes, gather listener feedback and update the podcast concept. The podcast was officially created with the release of the debut episode that can anyone can listen to for free on all major platforms.