Places to visit (and textbook thoughts)

The list of places to visit for reasons related to environmental (solar, sustainability, etc.) reasons has grown to include:

1. Abundance Ecovillage
2. Indian Creek Nature Center to discuss the new solar building
3. Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, Robert Kahn Residence Hall (where students sign a sustainability pledge including abstaining from bringing a car to campus), and at least one OSCA Co-op (where students receive reduced room/board and business management experience by being involved in their food production) all at Oberlin College.

Additionally, I am pursuing practice in mindfulness that could be applied to both teaching (pedagogy and curriculum) as well as shared with Kirkwood faculty/staff in later professional development.  I have already completed the first, required 8 week course in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and am no planning one or more silent retreats, which is the next step in becoming a practitioner.

Lastly, I've been pondering my new textbooks and the goal to make their use more integral to class.  I have decide the text will be the starting point for answering various questions I pose to the class (answering the questions may be done individually or in group writing projects).  For instance, in Social Problems, the new text could be used to answer the question of whether "raising the minimum wage must raise prices" or a related question regarding inequality in wealth or income.  The three theoretical perspectives would also be applied in answering to understand 'who benefits' from mainstream answers to similar questions.  From there, students could investigate different ways of doing that already exist (e.g., Alvarado Street Bakery) as well as historical periods when behaviors were different (e.g., periods when tax rates for the wealthy were much higher).