BY MONIQUE DUBOS
 
In the early years of the new millennium, more than 1,000 worldwide experts compiled a report about the condition of Earth's ecological systems. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment findings "provide a state-of-the-art scientific appraisal of the condition and trends in the world's ecosystems and the services they provide (such as clean water, food, forest products, flood control and natural resources) and the options to restore, conserve or enhance the sustainable use of ecosystems," according to the MA website.

The next step, says Laura Musacchio, is to translate the information for nonscientists, to be applied by designers and planners for the enhancement of urban environments.

Musacchio, an IonE resident fellow and associate professor of landscape architecture in the College of Design, assert that this type of translation is a specialized skill she calls "knowledge brokering." A knowledge broker is a "cross-pollinator of ideas among professionals from different disciplines," she explained at the May 1 Frontiers in the Environment seminar.

Writing term papers, doing problem sets ... it's easy for college students to wonder whether what they do really matters. But members of 10 University of Minnesota classes last fall had no question at all about the relevance of their work. Inaugural participants in the University's new Resilient Communities Project, they spent their semester helping solve very real sustainability challenges for the city of Minnetonka.

BY BEN LAUER

A "ready, fire, aim!" approach, Virajita Singh explained during her Frontiers in the Environment presentation last Wednesday, is integral to sustainable design. By seeking improvements throughout the design process, aiming after firing produces a more precise result. Instead of leaving the loose ends of a project to serve as a lesson for the future, projects are treated as flexible, ongoing processes where design fixes previous missteps.