In this course, students will explore fundamental concepts of sustainability and resilience in urban systems through case studies, videos, panel discussions, and a hands-on team consulting project in Chicago or Champaign-Urbana. Projects have been solicited from governmental and non-governmental organizations; planned topics are:

• Design green features for a community center in Champaign (Prosperity Gardens)
• Improve sustainability of de-icing process at O’Hare Airport (Chicago Department of Aviation)
• Design/assess effectiveness of green stormwater infrastructure, Champaign (John St. Watershed Steering Committee, International Society for Arboriculture) – recommend co-registration in CEE 598 IUW Integrated Urban Water Infrastructure
• Develop strategies to increase multi-family recycling (City of Champaign)
• Explore feasibility of new greenways (City of Urbana)
• Estimate air quality impacts of diesel-powered vehicles & coal-fired power generation in Chicago (Environmental Law and Policy Center) – recommend previous or co-registration in CEE 445 Air Quality Modeling

Prerequisites: The course is open to graduate students from all majors who will work in multidisciplinary teams. Teams will be balanced with existing skills and disciplines, but each student should have 400-level course work or comparable professional experience relevant to the above projects. For some projects, prior enrollment or co-registration in another class (noted above) is recommended for students interested in that topic.

For further information, please contact Professor Barbara Minsker at minsker@illinois.edu.