Last month the Curb Your Litter team was invited to participate in a Sustainable Environmental Systems (SES) course at Pratt Institute. SES is a trans-disciplinary program in graduate sustainability studies with a curriculum focused on the nexus of environmental policy, science and design. Students in the Sustainable Communities course are studying the ecological and economic history of Greenpoint, and learning about ways in which the neighborhood can be developed sustainably. Curb Your Litter will serve as a case study for the students to study our grassroots approach to solving one environmental problem in the neighborhood- litter.

Yesterday, the Curb Your Litter team trekked to Clinton Hill for our first presentation to the class. We discussed the project’s origins, how we developed our data collection methodology, shared our  initial findings, and got the students input on other questions we should be asking in our quest to stop Greenpoint’s litter problem. In a couple of months, the class will provide us with some research and mapping analysis that will be helpful in our efforts. We are looking forward to learning from their insights!