The Green Earth Cooperative is a new Sustainability Theme House in Arroyo Vista for 2016-17.
Under the theme of sustainability, students in the Green Earth Cooperative are invited into a holistic, community living learning experience. Residents collaboratively build skills and knowledge to enact a simple yet rich lifestyle, grounded in the urgency of the global climate crisis and the invitation the crisis provides to create deep and lasting fundamental changes in the way we live.
Cooperative residents learn stewardship through multidisciplinary hall programming that guides residents in audits of energy and water use, recycling and garbage patterns, and local food production possibilities to lessen the group’s total impact on the environment. Residents learn empathy and other essential community skills through participatory group process as well programming on interrelated environmental, economic, and social justice concerns.
The house offers a wide variety of activities including weekly vegetarian dinners, faculty and community interactions, and specialized academic course offerings. Students can learn heirloom skills for living in the twenty-first century such as food preservation, organic gardening, aquaponics, sewing, home and self-care, as well as tools of community engagement.
Residents are expected to be actively involved and participate in programs and activities. Please note, this house requires 4-5 hours of cooking, cleaning, or household planning work every week. Residents will be encouraged to enroll in a for-credit class to complement their experience and receive recognition for their efforts (more details TBA). Priority will be given to those students who are pursuing a major or minor related to global sustainability.
This house is sponsored by the Student Housing Sustainability Program and the Global Sustainability Resource Center as part of the campus as a living lab pathway. Academic direction is provided by members of the multi-disciplinary Faculty Task Force on Sustainability Education. We are currently working on a number of final details including the academic, for-credit options that will accompany this house. More details will be available before you register for Fall courses.
Email raharvey@uci.edu for more information.
If you are on the GUARANTEED HOUSING LIST for 2016-17, we will need to work with housing to redirect your preference to this house.
For NON-GUARANTEED CONTINUING STUDENTS, you should submit the Housing application as soon as the Application window opens in April.  The website for this is https://my.housing.uci.edu/gateway
MORE INFO: http://housing.uci.edu/apply/How_To_Apply.html#contugs