Wow, looks like Arizona college students are making big plans for this year’s Earth Day. Great to see that students are getting involved and making this push.

With Earth Day 2008 set for April 22, students and professors at the state’s universities and community colleges are preparing exhibits, games, fashion shows, movie showings, musical performances and other events to raise awareness about the environment.

Scott, the activities coordinator for Yavapai College’s Verde Valley campus, said the school will show “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary featuring former Vice President Al Gore, to inform students about how the environment is changing.

“It’s up to the next generation to take care of the planet,” said Scott, who is a humanities freshman at Northern Arizona University. “It’s important for people to realize that the Earth is changing and we have to be a part of it or it won’t be a part of our lives for much longer.”

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Find out what some of the events are around you at our Earth Day Events Page. Please let us know if we are missing any events.

Just a couple days ago I posted about cohousing and today I noticed this story about Manzanita Village in Prescott. They are receiving a matching grant from the Arizona State Land Department to enhance it’s urban forest and to expand it’s networks of information sharing. They are going to achieve this by hosting workshops where they install cisterns to collect rainwater that falls on their common house. They will be using this to water new forest garden catchment basins that they will also be installing at the workshops. On April 26th and 27th Andrew Millison, local permaculture expert, and Prescott College Instructor, and Macrae Nicoll, of High Desert Rain Catchment will lead the workshops at Manzanita Village. For the full story head over to www.readitnews.com.

If you’ve been to ASU’s main campus you’ve probably seen all the trees full of fruit and maybe assumed the school was using it in it’s cafeterias around campus. I guess not because I just ran across an article saying that some student groups have begun harvesting the fruit to be used around campus. I think it’s great that they are doing this and I hope it’s something that sticks. It makes sense that you’d use the fruit that growing right here. There is a good variety of trees there, navel, Seville and blood oranges, cumquats, limequats, lemons and pecans which are all organic. Thanks to the student group VegAware for doing all the hard work to make this happen!

Here’s the article about it at eCollege Times

Head on over to ASU’s main campus to find some great arts and crafts created by ASU’s faculty, staff, students, alumni, and student groups. I made it to the last sale and was surprised by all the great creations to be found. This is a great opportunity to support all the talent that is to be found on campus. Click the banner to learn more and to get a preview of what you’ll find.

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 27, 2008

Where: Hayden Lawn, ASU’s Tempe campus

I’m reading the book ‘Native to Nowhere’ for a class of mine and it’s talking about how many suburbs have hurt people’s sense of community and place. I’m just starting the book, but it got me thinking about Arizona and how many people here don’t seem to feel like they are part of a community. I have to admit I hardly know my neighbors. I was wondering if there were any developments that specifically are designed to create a community, a sense of belonging. Surprising I found a few here in Arizona. So far with a little Google searching I found three cohousing communities. Cohousing doesn’t mean they all share a house, but they are closer then your average suburb. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition.

A cohousing community is a kind of intentional community composed of private homes with full kitchens, supplemented by extensive common facilities. A cohousing community is planned, owned and managed by the residents, groups of people who want more interaction with their neighbours. Common facilities vary but usually include a large kitchen and dining room where residents can take turns cooking for the community. Other facilities may include a laundry, pool, child care facilities, offices, internet access, game room, TV room, tool room or a gym. Through spatial design and shared social and management activities, cohousing facilitates intergenerational interaction among neighbours, for the social and practical benefits. There are also economic and environmental benefits to sharing resources, space and items.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing

On top of these developments catering to a sense of community it seems most of them also incorporate a lot of sustainable living practices. Most of the houses are built to be very energy efficient, have greywater systems installed, and have water harvesting equipment installed. They use non- or low-toxicity building materials to protect their health as well. Community gardens, pools, and parks also serve to make the community more tight.

Tucson’s Desert Living recently did a profile on of these communities called Stone Curves. Click here to watch it online.

Here’s a list of cohousing communities I found in Arizona:

• Milagro – Tucson
• Sonora – Tucson
• Stone Curves – Tucson
• Manzanita Village – Prescott