Educational Awareness and Green Infrastructure

hpigreen — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:45:12 +0000

While attending the recent Tennessee ASLA conference, and sitting in on a lecture about native plants, a presenter made an offhand comment stating that public education is the most important thing we can do to raise awareness, because if people don’t know about things then how can we expect them to care? Whenever possible, HPI has incorporated interpretive graphics into public projects such as greenways or parks, to highlight the history of the place or unique features of the site. Recently we have been provided the opportunity to create educational signage about sustainability for two newly completed projects – the first for a private developer and installed at Hill Center Belle Meade and the other for the City of Nashville for the renovation of Deaderick Street.

Environmental Stewardship campaigns have been around a long time with recycling awareness programs, Arbor Day, etc. Incorporating educational signage about sustainability into the built environment adds another facet to this type of non-formal education for the general pubic and is another perfect opportunity for landscape architects to become involved. Some traditional public awareness methods require the people to find their way to specific websites (the EPA has a couple of great sites geared towards the younger age groups; Environmental Kids Club or Polluted Runoff) or people have to just happen see things in the media. While these are all good, they may make it hard to target a wide range of groups.

The cool thing about putting educational posters in the built environment is the wide audience that you can target. For instance, a lot of different people on their way to the supermarket in Hill Center Belle Meade, or to their office buildings or the theater on Deaderick Street, will walk by these signs everyday. We just hope it sparks interest and provides a topic of conversation to raise even more awareness for sustainable practices.

Rainwater Harvesting Sign at Hill Center Belle Meade

Highlighting the Sustainable Practices in Deaderick Street Construction

Green Infrastructure Digest » educational awareness

Educational Awareness and Green Infrastructure