The mind of a growing child is an impressionable thing. As a line taken from the musical Into the Woods states, ???Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.??? And in fact, majority of the things children hear and see come from the place they spend majority of their time: school. So, in light of developing a more sustainable community, what can we do in order to show the youth the importance of practices that aid the environment rather than being detrimental to it? And how can we then expand that to the Oberlin community in order to positively move towards the goal of carbon neutrality? On the table is a plan that will address both of these issues: the construction of a consolidated, high performance, carbon neutral K-12 campus.

Words to describe Oberlin.

Diverse, unique, different, different perspectives religions and people, traditional

John and Anne Elder are residents of Kendal at Oberlin. John served as Pastor of the First Church in Oberlin UCC from 1973 to 1991. Anne was a Supervisor in the Lorain City Schools from 1973 to 1991. John enjoys papermaking, printmaking and watercolors. Anne is a Court Appointed Special Assistant to advocate for children in the court system.

Q: What words or images would you use to describe Oberlin?

David Hill has been Pastor of First Church in Oberlin UCC  for ten years. He serves as President of Oberlin Community Services, a local social services organization. Pastor Hill enjoys integrating music into worship experiences, especially jazz.

Q: What words or images would you use to describe Oberlin?

Midge Brittingham has been a resident of Oberlin since 1969. She is an alumni of Oberlin College, class of 1960, and is the mother of two Oberlin graduates. She served many years with the Oberlin College Alumni Association and is an active layperson at Christ Episcopal Church in Oberlin. She and her husband Smith enjoy hosting meals for international students at their house each Sunday night.

Q: What word or image would you use to describe Oberlin?

Photo by Yvette Chen OC '16Think about all the places you have walked. Have you walked to the public library? Or to school? To pick up some groceries downtown? Or to friend???s house?

Margaret Christian has walked back and forth a countless number of times to these places and to others. Why not drive a car instead? There are a number of reasons she could tell you, from health reasons to environmental ones. There is also a fundamental difference for Ms. Christian in the way you perceive the town as a walker. She says, ???I see the changes of the seasons, I see the cans that are left behind.??? So perhaps walking can be a learning experience as well, explains Ms. Christian. A way to get in touch with the surrounding environment and to gain a better sense of the community, with all of its unique characteristics and rich history. Ms. Christian personally likes to walk to the Westwood cemetery, because it is a place she can come back to, remember and learn about the people that were here who make up the history of the town.

         Photo by Yvette Chen OC'16A.G. Miller is Professor of Religion at Oberlin College. He has lived in Oberlin with his wife Brenda Grier Miller since 1991. In 2001, he and several other Oberlin community members started the Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship, part of the House of Lord Pentecostal churches.

Q: What word or image would you use to describe Oberlin?

I have been thinking about my eating habits since I went visit my brother in Colorado, who has recently adopted a strict Vegan diet. Not only does he not eat any animal products, he abstains from eating any type of processed food. This adjusted nutritional lifestyle seems like a very difficult task. I???m not sure if I have the willpower to currently take such a drastic step in my own life. His new nutritional lifestyle made me reflect on my daily food choices. How does the food I eat affect me, and furthermore, how does it affect the environment? I never took time to think about how my food choices affect the environment. An Introduction to Ecology course at Lorain County Community College recently opened my eyes to my narrow scope of my food choices.  It also offered me a fresh perspective and challenged me to begin looking at my food and the environment through a broader lens. During my Ecology course is when I first heard the term flexitarian. It means someone who is a vegetarian and allows meat in his or her diet on occasion. I started thinking about the different food choices that I can make that can positively affect the environment without going to the extreme.

This idea of becoming a flexitarian is appealing to me, because even though I care about the environment and my own health, I am not ready to take such drastic steps in my life to become a full-fledged vegetarian. Instead, I want to push myself to make better food choices rather than feel guilty about eating meat or processed foods on occasion. I believe that eating a completely vegetarian diet is hard and can be costly. With the adoption of a flexitarian lifestyle, I can make changes while also bending the rules to suit my personal tastes. Also, I have a young son that loves his macaroni and cheese and I would not feel right restricting his food choices. However, he will still be affected by this lifestyle change because grocery shopping as a flexitarian will directly affect what I put on the dinner table. He will unknowingly reap the benefits of our newfound nutritional lifestyle.

John Memmott is a semi-retired teacher who spent many years in the Oberlin public schools. He???s also a long-time sea-kayaker and avid photographer. Recently, he???s gotten involved with getting the Environmental Dashboard system set up in Prospect Elementary. 

Technology to display video has come a long way since its start in the 1800???s. From analog to digital, VHS to BluRay, and even as you look at your computer, how we receive information (and entertainment) via a screen has changed drastically in order to make a more informed society. But are we informed about the right things in all the right places? While information about the world continues to grow and become more easily accessible, how about what???s happening in Tappan Square this weekend? Or what is my favorite local business doing on the sustainability front? How is the electricity and water I use daily moving through the City of Oberlin? With the launch of the new Environmental Dashboard at Prospect Elementary School and the Oberlin Public Library, this information will be more accessible and relevant to Oberlinians than ever.