Building off the success of the Boardwalk, completed in 2007 with
all-volunteer student, staff, faculty and community labor, the next idea that took shape for the Green Campus Initative was the Campus Sustainability Tour. Our Community Partner Specialist had taken Madison Mayor Dave to our sister-city Freiburg in Germany last summer. There they have something called a “Solar Tour Guide” that helps tourists find all the great sustainable installations in their city, the solar Capital of the EU.
Mayor Dave wants to create something similar in Madison, and promised Edgewood a page in the publication! So, we got to work writing about the things we’ve accomplished: Dominican Hall, the first Silver-LEED certified residence hall in Wisconsin, Mazzuchelli with its experimental rain gardens and green building features, the Boardwalk, the Indian mounds and what they meant to the sustainable lifestyle of the Ho-Chunk who lived here before we came.
To create our own Tour guide brochure and signs to mark the route, we conducted a service-learning project in Agnieszka Ligendza’s Typography class. Modeled after a real-life graphic design process, each student created a brochure and signage design and we all voted on the best one. Bethany Wheeler took the honors for the brochure, and Drew Weinstein won the best signage design.
Everything was manufactured and in place for Earth Day. Mayor Dave was on hand to give the keynote, award certificates for the Eco Olympics and recognize the students who designed the Tour elements, and take the inaugural tour!
