Friday, September 27, 2024
Monday, September 9, 2024
Visualizing the Nexus: A relational summary by James Fernandez
A great relational summary by PCGS graduate student James Fernandez, (if you are a PCGS student at USF Tampa you can view the full discussion here.)
Creating an Opportunity Economy in the Classroom by Professor T.H. Culhane
We hear the call these days, albeit only by politicians who seem to care about creating a robust middle class, to create an "Opportunity Economy".
The concept is at least as old as America, the notion that "if you work hard, you WILL get ahead".
Unfortunately, that certainty, once a bedrock of Democratic philosophy, rings hollow to the vast majority of our people, growing in their realization that the huge wealth disparity in our country is proof that most of the people who work the hardest earn the least while a tiny minority -- people who seem to do little more than golf and take long "business lunches" and show up at cocktail parties -- make out like bandits in a society that seems to reward highway robbery.
One of my LatinX Mercy University students wrote the following during her first week of class after watching Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity" and reflecting on evidence of how quickly the job market was changing relative to educational paradigms :
"Another thing that was mentioned in this video is " If you work hard, do well and get a college degree you would have a job" This ideology was possible ten years ago. NOW, a college degree does not matter for most jobs, a college degree is seen as a highschool diploma. It is to the point where now, college is seen as a scam because we were told that college would better out future and that if we get our degrees we will get great jobs and multiple open doors of opportunities, and yet here we are where a lot of college graduates are struggling to even step foot into a minimum wage job because the career they studied for and kept trying to get would not hire."
The sense of disillusionment in the American Dream of prosperity through schooling , the sense of injustice and the accompanying intuition that people of historical privilege are still getting the lions share of opportunities because of cronyism rather than hard work may or may not be justified. We can't really say what the ratio of input to output is for each citizen, although we do know that there are plenty of people who simply inherit their wealth without much sweat -- we don't know about the tears -- and we do know that an artfully low Capital Gains Tax creates conditions that creates conditions for a "parasitic class" to develop.
Our AI muse Chat GPT explains,
"The capital gains tax enables wealth accumulation without much effort because it taxes income from investments, such as stocks or real estate, at a lower rate than earned income from wages or salaries. This creates an advantage for the wealthier "parasitic class," who often derive a significant portion of their income from investments rather than labor.
By paying lower taxes on capital gains than on earned income, the wealthy can amass even more wealth through passive activities like buying and holding assets, without engaging in productive work. This incentivizes wealth-hoarding and speculation over labor-based income, exacerbating income inequality."
And so, as the saying goes, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer".
What the public today doesn't often realize, or isn't encouraged to talk about, although it has been the subject of many violent clashes over the centuries, is that the entire rigged system of inequality in a putative democracy is propped up and reinforced and made to seem acceptable by the school system.
We who are believers in the American Dream of prosperity and liberty and justice for all don't often look at the fundamental conditions of the school system that perpetuate structural injustice behind the guise of a "meritocracy".
In his essay "Building the Opportunity Economy", Robert Friedman of "Prosperity Now" starts by quoting Abraham Lincoln saying,
" [The objective of government is] to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life."
I would argue that this should also be the objective of the school system, and many still stubbornly believe it is.
Against all evidence.
Those of us in the trenches who have been teaching in and observing the system from within for over a quarter century, as I have, at all levels, K-graduate school, know that we are failing spectacularly in this "elevation".
On a side note, we should ponder how, in France, where they are doing an admirable job of tackling climate change and greening and cleaning their cities, the word for student is actually "eleve" while in America, where the greatest existential threat to humanity is treated as a hoax and our urban squalor is atrocious, we seem to "delevate" our pupils. We find ourselves grappling with the conclusions of lifetime education reformers like John Gatto who wrote "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling" and "Weapons of Mass Instruction": School makes us stupid.
If the objective of school is actually to demerit our skills and destroy our confidence and "delevate" the condition of men and women by placing artificial weights on our shoulders, obstacles in our paths and trip us up in the race of life, then it is doing a spectacular job.
The irony is that while we don't have too much of a say in how our government is run outside the ballot box and some civil service, we DO have control over our classrooms. If we can teach true democracy there, and practice rather than merely preach, I feel we can affect real change as that lived experience permeates through the rest of our lives.
My goal every semester is to model "The Opportunity Economy" in the Classroom and see how throwing the stone of democratic participation into that pond of thought and feeling ripples out into the "real world" later.
To do this, let's return to the article by "Prosperity Now".
Friedman writes,
"We start with the recognition of the capacity and productive potential of low-income and economically-marginalized people: they are all potential creators of wealth, whether as skilled workers, entrepreneurs, home owners, savers or investors. All of us have weaknesses and needs, but the truth is that meaningful development relies more on building on the strengths of people than on remedying their perceived deficiencies."
Applying this to the classroom means starting with the recognition of the capacity and productive potential of ALL our students, particularly those plagued by "low-performance". Rather than stigmatizing the "underacheivers" and blaming the victim in the name of supposed "meritocracy", assuming that human capacity falls under a "Bell Curve", I've spent my career focusing on the needs of those who need the most help stepping up onto the elevator that lifts us to the path of prosperity.
I've based my classroom methodology on a simple application of conclusions that studies such as those done by Washington non-profit "Corporation for Enterprise Development" (CFED) and theorists such as Hernando De Soto (The Mystery of Capital) have revealed to us, for example "that all the strategies [for asset building] worked if they built the confidence, competence, connections, and capital of families."
The key is to apply to the classroom "the Asset-Building Community Development field inspired by John McKnight and his colleagues, built on the theories of Ivan Illich and Paolo Frieri, which insists on treating low-income and marginalized people as assets."
In other words, "everyone is awesome, everyone is cool 'cause we're part of a team" (to paraphrase the Lego movie). When we conceive of every individual in our classrooms as having high value, particularly those who we so often de-merit because of performance gaps, we shift the burden from the student AND the teacher to the structural realities of the system and give every individual in the class a chance to participate in improving that system so that it does, in the end, provide a chance for liberty and justice for all.
These are not hollow words, this is democracy in action, backed by faith in the dignity of every individual.
You see, in our country we have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, "a U.S. government agency dedicated to making sure you are treated fairly by banks, lenders and other financial institutions." But we don't seem to have a strong enough "Student Credit Protection Bureau" (SCPB?) that makes sure you are treated fairly by teachers, administrators and other students.
If we were to apply the CFPB protections to students in a classroom we would see the following:
Whereas " the CFPB defines financial well-being as:
Feeling in control of one’s day-to-day finances;
Having the capacity to absorb a financial shock;
Being on track to meet financial goals; and
Having the financial freedom to make choices to enjoy life.
the SCPB would define scholastic well-being as:
Feeling in control of one's day to day learning
Having the capacity to absorb a shock to or lull in productivity
Being on track to meet class expectations; and
Having the scholastic freedom to make choices to enjoy school.
As Friedman writes, "What makes an individual or family financially capable and healthy is very similar to what makes a broader movement successful.".
The problem is that we've been spectacularly UNSUCCESSFUL in moving students in our school systems closer to feeling capable and healthy.
With that in mind I take seriously the well-being of my students and simply apply those principles listed above. My entire "Maieutic Method" is about "Asset Building".
It starts witht the recognition that ALL the points a student makes rhetorically should be validated as assets of value. No matter what starting point they come from, no matter how large the "intellectual wealth gap" seems at the outset, their poverty in scholarship should have no bearing on the value they bring to the class. "Everyone is awesome" and each utterance is an asset. In my classes everything my students say or write or present is considered a possible "diamond in the rough" that we, as interpreters, as the audience, as allies, need to help refine and "midwife" into fruition. That is the essence of Plato's Maieutic Method -- a non-competitive variant of the Socratic Method wherein the dialog is not combative or debate oriented but uplifiting. Maieutic means "to midwife" in Greek. It is a different way to think of ideas than the usual "point-counterpoint" or "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" dialectic.
It seems Plato improved on his teacher!
This "kinder, gentler" way of holding classroom discussions, of creating uplifting ASSET-BUILDING conversations, is at the core of my methodology.
I also apply three fundamental freedoms foundational to many native American cultures and lifted to our awareness by the anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow in their tome "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity".
As ChatGPT articulates them, they were:
The freedom to move away (or relocate) – People had the ability to leave situations or communities they did not want to be part of. This freedom of movement allowed individuals to avoid oppressive relationships or conditions.
The freedom to disobey – There was no compulsion to obey a central authority. People were not bound to follow commands from leaders or rulers, allowing for more egalitarian social structures.
The freedom to create new social relationships – Individuals were free to establish their own social arrangements and forms of community, without being confined by rigid structures imposed by tradition or authority.
These freedoms highlight the flexibility, autonomy, and egalitarianism that characterized many Indigenous societies, offering an alternative to the more hierarchical and coercive norms seeWhen in European contexts."
The most salient reality of what I do in my courses now is honor these three fundamental freedoms by offering them to ALL of our students, regardless of their current level of 'self-discipline", "self-motivation", "maturity" or "accumulated scholastic capital". Our politicians love to talk about "freedom" and about "free speech" and our Constitutional rights but our school systems are downright feudal. Students in most classes are not free to move away (dropping a class carries penalties, walking away from certain "assignments" is heavily punished), they don't have any freedom to "disobey" the orders of their teachers and defnitely have a "compulsion to obey a central authority" and they have no freedom to negotiate a new arrangement of social relationships in the class nor do they have much or any say in the form of the community. They "confined to rigid structures imposed by tradition or authority".
This toxic "please the teacher" environment is the major source of discouragement and anxiety among our student body and just as these unfreedoms in the outside world constrain effective asset building and the accumulation of capital and lead to a world with fairly strict dividng lines between the "rich" and "poor", our classroom structures and expectations and demands have created a fairly strict dividing line between "winners and losers", between "successes and failures", between A and F students, with the "middle class" in the strictly imposed bell curve narrowing and diminishing in prowess and "purchase power", skills and capabilities and productivity.
However, when we apply the Asset Building Tools and Strategies of research groups like "Prosperity Now" to education, we can see parallel paths to success.
First, we have to recognize the many forms of FUNGIBLE capital that can be traded in our society:
Natural Capital, Cultural Capital, Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, Material Capital, and of course Financial Capital. We really need to focus on their fungibility - the idea that they can be endlessly transformed, one into the other.
We need to recognize that our students are evolving through different stages of capital transformation and that school is about the accumulation of Intellectural, Social and Cultural Capital. The expectation is that they can parlay those assets into Financial Capital once they graduate and hence their investment in pooling these other forms is worthwhile and can GUARANTEE A RETURN.
With that concept in mind, we can modify asset building tools used for accruing financial capital, like the Individual Development Account (IDA), to " to create the habit to save and build [ACADEMIC] wealth" and call it instead the INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNT (IDA) "to create the habit to save and build wisdom and intellectual capacity."
Friedman notes that effective "savings" require "a change in mindset" and he reminds us that creating those good habits requires "incentives — a match to whatever the individual saves". Retirement savings in particular he reminds us, " rank among the most developed and subsidized class of assets"
Are our children not going to school in a sense to prepare for their own "retirement" as much as they are being trained to be cogs in a labor wheel to benefit others? The purpose of work at the individual level is to find ways to eventually be able to stop working, right? But since we focus so distortedly on mere financial capital as the reward and since we give no guarantee that the time they spend laboring in our classrooms will result in a better life ("when am I ever going to use this math, or history knowledge" they always ask) our students don't see the value in building up their intellectual capital.
They see no value in the "intellecual development account" and I don't blame them for not devoting themselves to it if we don't match or subsidize their investments to show that WE (teachers, administrators) BELIEVE in the value of these accumulated assets.
We set the context, we make the rules of the game for them. A willingness to play and play along with our rules comes from an innate sense of justice and realized expectations -- their own possibility for CAPITAL GAINS.
When students, particular the "have nots" of the scholastic "monopoly board" know the game is rigged against them and that all the best intellectual "property" is already or soon to be bought up and exclusively owned by somebody else, where is the incentive to stay in the game?
So, to answer this question, I have rigged my class for pecuniary fairness.
As rule maker and "central bank" I have created an accounting system that encourages wealth creation:
I use Canvas and Blackboard as Savings Accounts.
Every time a student makes a point they make a point.
Meaning...
Every rhetorical point they bank is transduced into a credit point.
We peg the value of an A at 320 points made cumulatively over 16 weeks.
A level performance is the making of approximately 20 good points a week, and the students are tasked with "getting their points across."
In this way, using a "gamified" point system and an exchange system for turning rhetorical points into credit values, we actually create an economy. And since that economy is all about liberating students to take advantage of EVERY OPPORTUNITY available to learn and express oneself without fear of judgment or failure because EVERY POINT IS VALID when validated by getting it across to another human mind through posting it in Blackboard or Canvas and being translated into the gradebook, we create a true OPPORTUNITY ECONOMY in the classroom, one that ensures dignity and empowers authentic learning because it never marginalizes or punishes people for taking risks and stepping outside their comfort zone to expand their box and learn things that are truly new and different.
https://www.strongfinancialfuture.org/essays/building-the-opportunity-economy/
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Applying Nexus Teaching to Morocco Project Statement
Applicants are required to arrange an appropriate academic or professional affiliation prior to submitting their application. Please contact US Programs Officer, Ikram Boukhari at i.boukhari@fulbright.ma with a cc to Executive Director, Dr. Rebecca Geffner at r.geffner@fulbright.ma and Deputy Director, Hafsa El Bastami at h.elbastami@fulbright.ma at the Fulbright Commission in Rabat for assistance in identifying possible host institutions. Applicants should send a proposed research abstract and CV when requesting assistance in host institution recommendations. The Commission can only make recommendations. It is up to the applicant to establish communication and obtain appropriate affiliation, pending the host institution's interest.
Project Statement Guidance Here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejBqy3NqlZE
My CV for the project max 6 pages, 12 pt. 1 inch margins) can be viewed here: https://www.overleaf.com/read/ktctgxjcvwss#68b745
Project Statement:
what the project is, why it is needed, the objective(s) of the project, how you are prepared for the project and how you will accomplish it, the project timeline, and the outcomes and impact. It should complement the information you provide in your essays and CV/resume.
View Sample Project Statement Excerpts.
You will also be asked to provide a Project Title and Abstract. The Abstract is a 700-character summary of your project: it briefly describes the nature of the project, the plan (e.g., methodology), why the project is important/its impact, and the expected results. All applications are read in their entirety in the review and selection process. The purpose of this concise overview is to help the reader quickly understand the proposed project.
What you propose to do
- Teaching: describe what courses you propose to teach, do you plan on other teaching activities (e.g. seminars, curriculum/program development, public lectures, etc.
- How you propose to do it
- Teaching: What have you taught, how do you teach, your involvement in curriculum planning, thesis advising, or administrative responsibilities?
- Research: How do you expect to use the experience upon your return? (Such as institutional collaboration, student and faculty exchange) How feasible is your project in terms of resources and amount of time allocated? What research facilities and resources are found in the host country? How could local political/cultural issues impact your work?
- Be sure to discuss how you are uniquely qualified to conduct the project.
- Why the project is important
- Teaching: What you hope to contribute and gain from the experience.
- Research: Why does it need to be done? What significance does it hold for your discipline, your development, the host country’s benefit? How do you expect to use the experience upon your return? (Such as institutional collaboration, student and faculty exchange)
- What benefits the project will produce for your host, your discipline, you, and your home institution (employer)
- Teaching: What impact do you expect on your teaching and professional work? How do you expect to use the experience upon your return? (Such as institutional collaboration, student and faculty exchange)
- Research: How will results be disseminated (publications, conferences, presentations, joint collaborations, exhibitions, etc.)
- Additional considerations:
- Teaching/Research: Address teaching/research ratio as indicated in the award description; if the award description does not specify the ratio, speak to the teaching/research components equally using the above guidelines.
- Research: describe objectives and nature of research (qualitative vs. quantitative), the academic and professional context of the project, your relevant experience
Project Proposal (maximum 5 pages, 12 pt, 1 inch margins)
REFERENCES: Max 3 additional pages
Making the Nexus Real in Morocco: Applied WEFe Nexus Teaching for meeting our Sustainable Participatory Community Development Goals
I come from a Fulbright family. I feel as though the mission courses through my veins and that my lifelong intention to become a Fulbright scholar has finally found its moment. My goal has always been to serve my country by sharing the highest quality educational practices possible and applying the best practices from decades of my own sustainable development research.
This is indeed a critical and urgent moment. My colleague and mentor, Dr. Thomas Crisman, professor emeritus at USF Geosciences and a valued member of our University’s Fulbright family, has been instrumental in building bridges between cultures through his work with the High Atlas Foundation and Moroccan universities—institutions that have now invited me to continue this collaborative effort. In his paper, 'Averting a Total Collapse: How the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Impacts Ecological, Social, and Political Systems in the Middle East and North Africa,' Dr. Crisman reached a pivotal conclusion:
'What can tip the balance and cause everything to topple? Two key issues may drive tipping-point scenarios: the urban–rural disconnect and the demands of urbanization, which are eroding the mutual benefits between cities and their surrounding natural environments.'
Morocco finds itself at the center of these challenges, and many scholars and agencies there have called for partnerships to address this widening 'rift' through networks like PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) and The High Atlas Foundation with whom I seek to collaborate and serve.
I feel the technical decentralized solutions I and my colleagues have come up with and that my family and I have “life-tested” in the quarter century that I have been researching and teaching “nexus thinking and implementation” can help heal that “metabolic rift”. I also am confident that our hands-on, experiential, multi-lingual, gender empowering, STEM/STEAM appropriate, culturally adaptable, “Maieutic Method” for teaching in both informal and formal education settings, honoring both indigenous knowledge systems and rigorous scientific inquiry and focused on meeting the UN SDGs (particularly Quality education (SDG 4), Gender equality (SDG 5), Clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), and Affordable and clean energy (SDG 7)) can make a lasting difference in closing the social and particularly the educational gaps that keep us from sustainability.
I have always wanted to follow in the footsteps of my mother Hind Rassam Culhane (Fulbright scholar in the Social Sciences 2000-2001, Damascus Syria) and my aunt Amal Rassam (two time Fulbright scholar in Cultural Anthropology, 1970s, Atlas Mountains, Morocco) and my Uncle Ghassan Rassam (Fulbright Student from Baghdad studying Geology in Vermont 1960s)
Growing up in a family of educators whose lifelong purpose has been to teach and apply science through intercultural exchange, and having spent years working in sustainable development education and practice in the primary rainforests or Indonesian Borneo, in Maya communities in the Peten region of Guatemala, in the slums and informal communities of Cairo-Egypt, working with the craftspeople of old Islamic Darb Al Ahmar and the “Zabaleen” Coptic trash recyclers of Manshiyet Nasser, and in my wife’s agricultural family village of Bruquin, Palestine, I feel a calling at this stage of my career to make a commitment to a long-term application of my skills and experience in the fascinating cultural, scientific and ecological nexus that is Morocco so that I can return to USF to continue the partnerships my colleagues in both our countries have fostered.
My goal is to create a Fulbright experience that will have an enduring impact. My intention is to build upon the bridges already established by previous Fulbright scholars between our community of students and faculty at USF and spend a year engaged in multiple forms of teaching (80%) and applied research (20%) that can continue to evolve through repeat visits and exchanges to support the projects in food, energy, water, waste reduction and ecological restoration that our partners, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) and scientists at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University , have identified as crucial to “build capacity for development”. Morocco is the home of regionally informing case studies and fledgling success stories that need our long-term support and a focus on local capacity building so they can be sustainable and replicable both there and throughout the MENA region.
I propose to build and improve upon the successes I had as a Master’s student at UCLA studying sustainability in Guatemala when I moved into the Los Angeles Urban Ecovillage and took my apartment “off-grid” for three years while at the same time spending every summer and winter and spring break living in the village of Macanche near Tikal. There I worked with Maya community leader Pedro Cuc to establish an agroforestry plantation of 10,000 indigenous “Maya breadnut trees” (Brosimum alicastrum) and built a wildlife and forest soil friendly elevated research and education lodge that was powered by the sun and incorporated composting toilets and rainwater catchment. In both locations I took the Permaculture teachings I was learning in our UCLA Urban Planning/Regional and International Development program and applied and life tested them both in my own home in the city and during long stays in a rural community with the Maya people, sharing our successes and struggles in Spanish language workshops I conducted to make sustainability work at the household level. I can leverage these experiences effectively in the High Atlas mountain agricultural communities in Morocco through “SMART Goal” (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) implementations of specific teaching strategies: Field Based Learning, Project Based Learning,Practical and Applied Learning (with enhancement through local implementation of mobile 21st century Digital Simulation technologies for Immersive Learning and community Sharing improvements) and application of Flipped Classroom concepts where teacher becomes the student.
I propose to expand on and refine the successful outcomes of my PhD research in Cairo in the slums of Darb Al Ahmar living for several years in a building being renovated by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. There, learning alongside my neighbors, experiencing the daily cuts in electricity and water, the burning of trash and dirty fuels for water and space heating, the sudden disappearance of bottled gas due to extreme price volatility and the frequently muddy, flooded and sewage and garbage strewn roads, I developed techniques for building hand-made household solar hot water systems and water storage systems and home biogas systems and installing balcony mounted photovoltaic panels that completely eliminated my non-recyclable garbage and organic wastes and dramatically reduced my own dependency on market and municipality supplied fossil gas, water and electric supply constancy.
Through my connections to the American University in Cairo, where I was a teaching assistant, to the Wadi Environmental Science Center, which I helped create, the Zabaleen school for local capacity building and the architectural division of the Aga Khan Foundation for Culture, I was able to teach and share these techniques in Arabic and English throughout the community and country and I received a US AID Small Infrastructure grant to train a team in Old Islamic Cairo and in the Trash Recyclers community of Coptic Christian Cairo to build and install these systems throughout the area. This work brought me into the National Geographic Explorer family which then sent me around the world on various interdisciplinary “synergy” grants to conduct teaching throughout Africa and the Middle East and Nepal. I can make good use of these experiences to connect the peoples of the crowded urban and peri urban and rural communities of Marrakesh.
I also propose to contextually apply the results of the post-doctoral implementations of my studies that I life-tested in Germany, in New York and at our USF affiliated Rosebud Continuum Eco-Science center where I live with my Palestinian village born wife Enas, – a Water Sustainability and Geosciences student at USF interested in doing her capstone project in Morocco – and our 4 year old son Naigh Levant.
Through so many means – guiding “sustainability tours” of our community projects both on-site and in Augmented Reality, holding workshops, presenting at cultural festivals, speaking at scientific conferences,leading public lectures, attending design charrettes and policy discussions,creating multimedia content and actively participating in social media, in addition to classroom teaching at all levels, using my performance arts training to reach different audiences in the most appropriate ways – I have constantly reinvented myself as a teacher and hope to bring these skills to Morocco as a Fulbright ambassador of nexus technologies.
Over five years living in Germany, I incorporated our Egypt experiences and built and improved an integrated food-energy-water production system on my family’s porch in the city of Essen that turned all of our food wastes and greywater into rooftop garden fertigation while producing all of our cooking gas. We formed an NGO called “Solar CITIES Education” and used our modest home as a training facility for immigrants in diaspora who wanted to return to their home countries to improve their family’s lives. Though “Chance for Growth e.V.” I trained people in German and English. This culminated in trips to the Philippines and Nigeria where we built community biodigesters and held workshops in schools, universities and hospitals, staying with the families of immigrants from those countries and working with the government and NGOs, at one point living for a couple of weeks with the former President of Nigeria, His Excellency Obsanjo, who had us build and do trainings in and around his home in Abeokuta.
Over four years living in New York and teaching at Mercy University, brought by the president of the college to create a post-Hurricane Sandy resiliency program for low income families, I was able to work with immigrant and underprivileged students to create cold climate adapted indoor biodigester systems and deploy them in household basements and backyards in New York and Pennsylvania. At my own family apartment in a multistory building I implemented an indoor toilet biodigester system that was able to successfully keep all fecal material safely transformed in the apartment for several years, showing that in the face of storm related power outages and the failure of traditional infrastructure we could eliminate the threat of disease particularly in water vulnerable areas or with waterborne disease vectors. We taught these techniques in college classrooms in Manhattan and Dobbs Ferry and did yearly workshops at the United Nations and at learning centers and festivals like Clearwater and the Omega Institute and my students and I took “service learning” trips to Israel/Palestine, Belize, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Colombia to do peer-to-peer workshops.
In Florida for the past 8 years after moving with my new family onto the property where we established our Eco-Science field center, I have been teaching my USF students and they have in turn been helping me teach visiting high school students and community leaders from as far away as Haiti and Uganda about Nexus technologies through regular hands-on workshops. My wife and I live “off-grid” with a suite of nexus technologies that we and the community and our students have developed and integrated together, from big biodigesters decorated to look like fire-breathing dragons to food forests and agroforestry plots and greenhouses filled with hydroponics, aquaponics and aeroponics and permaculture systems. We recognize “refuse as resource” so we haven’t taken out the “garbage” in over 6 years. We have discovered ways to eliminate 90% of our “trash” and, using glass crushers and precious plastics shredders and granulators and food grinders to pulverize all of the trash. The organic material from both toilets and food residuals goes into our “food-waste-to-fuel-and-fertlizer biogas and compost systems to grow healthy food again while the inorganic material is used as an aggregate to make what we call “trashcrete” for nexus art projects and construction materials for permeable paving stones and benches that can scale up into vital infrastructure such as temperature, moisture and stress resistant pavement/ asphalt or other urban development materials.
With this as a background I intend to spend the lion’s share of my time (~80%) doing what I have the greatest passion for and what I do best: “Making the Nexus Real: Moving From Theory to Practice” (making good on the title of an influential US AID paper) by teaching sustainable development praxis (the nexus of theory and practice) with an eye toward improving both the way practical pedagogy is done and the impacts that make it vital and relevant. I plan to do this by customizing the way I’ve been teaching for Moroccan stakeholders under the guidance of the HAF and demonstrating the Water/Energy/Food/Ecology Nexus so that it is best suited for the various groups who have been calling for partnerships that can accelerate high impact implementations of best practices.
I intend to teach targeted modules from the five courses I’ve developed at the Patel College of Global Sustainability: WEFe Nexus Thinking, Climate Mitigation and Adaptation, Waste Not, Want Not: Reconsidering Refuse as Resource, Envisioning Sustainability (a science communications course) and Sustainability Design Laboratory (a hands-on technology course where we apply cutting edge mobile GIS and XR tools to improve data and landscape visualization for community participatory development). I intend to do so in a way that meets the needs of stakeholders in communities in need of the information and professional skills to engage in better decision making for climate impacted environments and the changing job market and communicate their knowledge to a larger culture of sustainability
As a former science education reformer with the Impact II National Teachers Network I cut my teeth for a decade in Los Angeles’ inner-city high-schools adapting my teaching style to the needs of “at-risk” students and learned the value of “getting into the neighborhood” and I developed a variant of Plato’s “Maieutic Method” for co-creating content “of, by and for the students and teachers and community”. I’ve carried this into my University teaching and workshops around the world. I intend to be guided by our partners at the High Atlas Foundation and Mohamed VI Polytechnic University and other school partners in Morocco and I plan teaching activities that include seminars, curriculum/program development, public lectures, science performance art, and cultural exchanges (including the “melodic-mnemonics science through music and video content and creation that I did regularly for 5 years with the American University in Cairo, the Wadi Environmental Science Center and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Egypt and was brought by the US Embassy to share in Morocco in 2006).
The objective of my research, which is intended to comprise ~20 % of my project, is to qualitatively investigate the local impacts of these thematic interdisciplinary and portfolio assessed/ground truthed teaching methods that include regular hands-on workshops in permaculture and the construction and operation of home and community scale nexus technologies such as food-waste-to-fuel-and-fertilizer biodigesters, solar hot water and photovoltaic systems, “precious plastic” and integrated food production systems (hydroponics, aeroponics, aquaponics, food forests, and permaculture techniques that improve agroforestry and perennial multi cropping and rewilding.
The research will use GIS and XR data visualization to display all of the locations where we “move from theory to practice” to “Make the Nexus Real” by conducting “Nexus Praxis” teaching methods.
Using an application of permaculture methodology (overlapping and widening concentric circles) we will identify “points of intervention” (places where a workshop was conducted, places where technology was introduced, places where classes or discussions or meetings were held) and annotate those data layers with photographs and hyperlinked information from surveys describing what was done, when and by whom and what the perceived impact has been. Wherever a nexus technology is deployed we will also document and map it and build out that location using Blender GIS, Unity for Humanity 3D and Spatial.io to create an interactable digital twin of the area so that we can hold virtual followup sessions there. These virtual sessions, the value of which I tested with our Florida Wildlife Corridor Education team and National Geographic partners, will also become part of the database timeline for each location point so that we can get a sense of how much interactivity there is to get an idea of how nexus thinking might be accelerated and enhanced through digitalization.
The thing is we KNOW these ideas work both in theory and practice, and I have successfully applied them at the household and community level through lived experience. Our colleagues in Morocco doing research have identified all of the problems, used GIS and spatial analysis to locate problem areas and solution providers geographically and they have produced marvelous papers suggesting solutions.and making recommendations. I am informed by their literature and eager to dialogue with it and apply it in beneficial and in symbiotic and ever-evolving ways for a lift-off from 2D paper proposals into a more 5D way of visualizing sustainability.
My objective is to bring a new dimension of teaching to the projects our partners in Morocco have identified, one that engages individuals and households in what the literature calls the “right livelihood approach” and helps us figure out where and why implementation is succeeding and failing. We seek to do this by bringing my family to spend the year living in a community where we can demonstrate the effectiveness of these ideas and technologies, showing their safety and convenience and efficacy, and visiting other families to build relationships and share our successes and failures at the level of “lived realities”. We can then, in turn, bring those lived experiences back to USF for further and continuous improvements and mutual sharing.
When we teach the Nexus through multiple overlapping channels, building biodigesters at the household and community level, creating “precious plastics” and “NexusArt”/”TrashArt”/”TrashCrete” hubs and ateliers, involving high school students and college and graduate students and NGO partners and local leaders and particularly women in the community, and when we LIVE THERE and are able to demonstrate the ability to turn “trash into treasure”, we should see a shift in the amounts of household waste being discarded and a diminution in the amounts of pollution affecting the neighborhoods that adopt and apply these lessons and techniques. With a renewed and proven understanding of how a zero waste and circular economy can help return the nutrients and energy and materials usually lost to landfill to the fields and agroforestry plots and cooking pots we should see a closing of the gap between city and countryside and a healing of that metabolic rift so as to avoiding that catastrophic tipping point my predecessors trained me to help us avoid.
CITATIONS REFERENCES that inform my work and with which I intend to dialog.
Fitzpatrick, M., Spears, K., Ryan, J., Polzin, S., Gottlieb, G., & Maxwell, D. (2021). Making the Nexus Real.
Subtitled “Moving from theory to practice” this US AID article well describes the approach I take in the nexus “praxis teaching” I’ve been engaged in for almost 40 years, since I first taught English as a Foreign language with the Fellahin in Egypt through the Department of Public Service on my Junior Year Abroad from Harvard. It defines a different “Nexus” than the “Water/Energy/Food/Ecology Nexus” that I now specialize in, describing “the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus approach proposed by the UN in 2016 and further elaborated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD/DAC)” Nonetheless, all of these “nexus approaches” come together in their insistence that we “strengthen collaboration, coherence and complementarity” and develop “a deep understanding of the context, recognizing and responding to changes in that context, and the drivers of those changes.” This requires great cultural sensitivity which I hope to bring to my teaching and research in Morocco.
Crisman, T. L. (2020). Averting a Total Collapse: How is the water-energy-food nexus impacting ecological, social, and political systems in the Middle East and North Africa? The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, (36).
Dr. Crisman did his Fulbright in Morocco recently and is my colleague at USF. It was he who connected me with The High Atlas Foundation with whom he also did research. He writes here that the HAF “takes an innovative approach to the issues facing rural populations” through “development of value-added products for local and international markets” and the “empowerment of women via cooperatives for product development” showing how “community ownership and empowerment help stabilize local rural economies and provide incentives for youth to obtain training, while reducing emigration to cities. This paper informed me and as I continue to dialog with Dr. Crisman about vital solutions to “Tipping Point One: The Urban-Rural Disconnect”. In our work with the HAF, it is my goal to serve in Morocco to provide precisely that kind of local Nexus training that the literature has identified as crucial for averting total collapse and for closing that metabolic urban-rural rift.
Antje Bruns, Simon Meisch, Abubakari Ahmed, Richard Meissner, Patricia Romero-Lankao, Nexus disrupted: Lived realities and the water-energy-food nexus from an infrastructure perspective, Geoforum, Volume 133, 2022, Pages 79-88,
Here we learn about the necessary rejection of a “one-size fits all” approach to Nexus Technologies with an emphasis on the on-the-ground compromises one must make and the nuances offered by “practice forms of tinkering or improvisation of infrastructural components, intermediate (decentralised) technologies,... or through some form of self-empowerment.” The article informs my on methodologically,by calling out “the role of practices as they help to understand Nexus heterogeneity and disparate forms of agency to (re-)configure a nexus. The findings demonstrate that the nexus is not just there but is constantly in-the-making”. My goal in this project is use a Nexus Teaching approach that is adaptive to that constant iterative design and application.l
Tsegaye, Seneshaw & Kunberger, Tanya & Zalewski, Janusz & Culhane, Thomas & Fairburn, Garrett & Honigfort, Maximilian. (2020). The Future of Creative Engineering Education: Application of Virtual Reality for Water-Energy-Food Nexus.
In this era of rapid technology advancement, information transfer through conventional educational methods has failed to create the future champions of change. We feel “ there is a need to adopt new educational technologies that allow students to visualize complex engineering and sustainability concepts.” This paper presents a virtual reality-based water-energy-food (VR-WEF) nexus visualization and simulation tool for teaching engineering students that I co-developed with my colleagues. VR-WEF is a powerful immersive tool that places students and stakeholders at the center of an alternative virtual world making it easier for them to experiment and learn complex engineering concepts effectively and understand the consequences of different engineering decisions. In Nexus Teaching we use VR-WEF to mimic the natural process (anaerobic digestion) of converting wastewater and food waste into renewable energy (biogas), fertilizer, and nutrient-rich recycled water. Through its functionalities, the tool provides an immersive and interactive environment, can increase student interest and engagement, and provides immersive visualizations that are not possible in the traditional classroom.
Abulrub, Hadi & Attridge, Alex & Williams, Mark. (2011). Virtual reality in engineering education: The future of creative learning. 2011 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON 2011. 751 - 757. 10.1109/EDUCON.2011.5773223.
The paper states that “Virtual reality has achieved an adequate level of development for it to be considered in innovative applications such as education, training, and research in higher education” but it doesn’t extend these applications to field training and workshops for community stakeholders, particularly in underserved and economically underprivileged communities. It identifies cost barriers as being the principal inhibitors to widespread application but concludes that barriers are rapidly coming down. I already apply “the future of creative learning” in the here and now and intend to apply it vigorously and responsibly in the near future in Morocco to maximize our capacity building for sustainable development, particularly in areas that haven’t had access to digital simulation technology.
El Mountassir, O., Bahir, M., Ouazar, D., Ouhamdouch, S., Chehbouni, A., & Ouarani, M. (2020). The use of GIS and water quality index to assess groundwater quality of krimat aquifer (Essaouira; Morocco). SN Applied Sciences, 2, 1-16.
The work of Dr. Mohammed Ouarani in applying spatial analysis to Nexus problems in Morocco not only informs my work but I have already begun dialoguing with both the work and the author himself. We will be meeting when my wife and I are in Morocco presenting workshops on Biodigester building and XR applications to nexus education at the International Conference on Urban Health this November so we can synergize his work with ours and that of the High Atlas Foundation.
Simou, M.~R., Rhinane, H., Maanan, M.\ 2022.\ The Role of GIS in Addressing Environmental, Social and Touristic Challenges in Mohammedia City, Morocco.\ ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 46W3, 323–327 and Benezzine, G., Abdeljalil, Z., Yahya, K. (2021). Use of GIS for Digital Mapping and Spatial Analysis of Landfills: Case of the Settat Province in Morocco. Ecological Engineering & Environmental Technology, 22(3), 1-10 and Mabrouki, J. et al. (2023).
These “problem identification” papers address the way Digital mapping is being done in Morocco, showing “visual nuisances, fire hazards..., the affectation of soil fertility, loss of livestock and degradation of the ecological value of certain natural sites” and conclude, “The results have shown the urgency [for] effective implementation of planning tools under the national household waste program”
Despite this urgency, 2024 sees problems only getting worse in most areas. Our research explores whether a different mindset wouldn’t work faster, a mindset derived from a cultural shift emphasizing ground level rather than municipal level education, a shift in practice that can occur when local stakeholders have been introduced to and seen the benefits of applying nexus thinking and spatial tools in their own lives. This is the purpose of my Nexus teaching strategy and the subject of my research.
Tsvuura, S., Senzanje, et. al. (2022). Report on integrating WEF Nexus into teaching and learning and on the outcome of the short training programme.
The article presents “survey results on WEF Nexus teaching in South African higher and tertiary education institutions” that “WEF Nexus related work is mainly embedded in MSc and PhD research programmes” and that “Most believed WEF Nexus should be focused on postgraduate students, and their institutions would welcome WEF Nexus-related teaching and learning.” I have a different believe - that Nexus teaching should be done in the community with stakeholders who suffer most from its absence.
Romulo, C., Venkataraman, B., Caplow, S. et al. Implementing interdisciplinary sustainability education with the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11, 928 (2024).
The article recognizes that Nexus Teaching “is a powerful arena in which to educate sustainability change makers who will be equipped to facilitate societal transformation and address the SDGs” but restricts the implementation to the formally educated class I intend widen the arena and the audience in Morocco and evaluate the results.
Application Essays:
Consult the award description for host institution requirements, if any.
Proposed Host Institution *
High Atlas Foundation
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Additional Comments
A USF we are developing a tradition of working with High Atlas Foundation for maximum long term impact. Our Geosciences Professor Emeritus Dr. Crisman did Fulbright with them too; built relationship
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Academic Discipline *
Environmental Sciences
Accounting/FinanceAcousticsAgricultureAllied HealthAnimal ScienceAnthropologyArchaeologyArchitectureArea StudiesArt HistoryArtsAstronomyBiologyBusinessChemistryCommunicationsComputer ScienceCriminal JusticeCriminologyCrop SciencesCulinary ArtsDanceDemographyDental SciencesDesignDrama/Theater ArtsEconomicsEducationEngineeringEnvironmental SciencesFashionFilm/Cinema StudiesFine ArtsFisheriesForestryGender StudiesGeographyGeologyHistoryInformation Sciences/SystemsInternational RelationsJournalismLanguageLanguage TeachingLawLibrary ScienceLinguisticsLiteratureMarketingMaterials ScienceMathematicsMedical SciencesMeteorologyMuseum StudiesMusicMusic StudiesNeuroscienceNursingNutritionOceanographyPaleontologyPhilosophyPhysicsPolitical SciencePsychologyPublic AdministrationPublic HealthPublic PolicyReligious StudiesSocial WorkSociologyTelecommunicationsTheology/ReligionTravel/TourismUrban PlanningUrban StudiesVeterinary MedicineWriting
Primary Specialization *
Climate Change
Agricultural DevelopmentAir PollutionClimate ChangeConservationCultural EcologyDesalinization of WaterEcologyEnvironmental BiologyEnvironmental Control, OtherEnvironmental Engineering TechEnvironmental HealthEnvironmental PolicyEnvironmental PsychologyEnvironmental SociologyEnvironmental StudiesEnvironmental ToxicologyIrrigationLand UseNational ParksNatural & Human SystemsNatural Resources & ConservationNatural Resources EconomicsNatural Resources Management & PolicyNatural Resources, MiscellaneousNatural Resources/ConservationNatural SciencesReclamationRemote SensingSoil ConservationWaterWater PollutionWater Resources EngineeringWater Resources Policy & ManagementWildlife & Wildland Management
Other Specializations: Enter additional details about the discipline and/or specialization of your project. (200 characters)
I teach "Navigating the Water/Energy/Food/Ecology Nexus and specialize in the application of home and community scale nexus linked biodigestion systems to improve urban & rural health & food security
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The project title should succinctly describe the focus of the proposed activity, and be capitalized and spelled correctly. If a grant is awarded, the title as it appears here will appear on formal Fulbright communications, including the Fulbright Scholar Directory.
Project Title *
Making the Nexus Real in Morocco: Applied WEFe Nexus Teaching to meet Participatory Community SDGs
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The abstract is a summary of your project: it briefly describes the nature of the project, the plan (e.g., methodology), why the project is important/its impact, and the expected results. All applications are read in their entirety in the review and selection process. The purpose of this concise overview is to help the reader quickly understand the proposed project. Do not use hard returns, and remove any extra lines/spaces to ensure text is single-spaced. *
Water/Energy/Food/Ecology Nexus studies have become important parts of Morocco's "Green Transition" and "Capacity4Development" strategy to “avert total nexus collapse”(Crisman, 2020). As a Nexus Thinking educator involved in WEFe Nexus technology training and implementation in the MENA region and other developing regions for over 25 years the methodology I would like to bring to Al Maghreb is "lived praxis (where theory meets practice) for participatory community development. To have maximum impact I propose to live and work in our partner communities conducting daily workshops and classes and capacity building implementations based on previous successes teaching in Egypt and Guatemala.
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Recommenders and Language Evaluators
Name | Status | |
Amer, Salwa | Submitted on September 6 | |
Dorsey, Joseph | Sent to recommender on August 22 | |
Latowsky, Anne | Submitted on September 4 | |
Sebag, Giselle | Submitted on August 29 |
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Indicate your previous experience with the language(s): *
- Indicate how you learned the language(s), such as formal study, self-study, mother tongue, spoken at home, studied/lived in country, etc.
- If you formally studied the language(s), indicate how much time you spent in formal study and the level (e.g., number of semesters or years).
- Indicate if you have spent time studying or living in a place where the language(s) are spoken.
- Indicate the recent opportunities you have had for reading and speaking the language(s), including lecturing.
- Indicate if you have ever taken a language proficiency test in the language(s); if so, describe the nature of the test(s), including when it was administered.
Studied French from grade 5 through freshman year college; took French literature course at Harvard. When Iraqi grandfather visited summer Sophmore year he taught me to read and write Arabic; then took year long Classical Arabic course at Harvard Semitic museum. Studied Arabic at Bourgiba InstituteTunisia conversing in French; Junior year abroad, Egypt. 6 months with grandfather in Iraq.Studied at AUB and AUC. Took a course in Spanish literature senior year, studied Spanish for a month in Venezuela and in Guatemala doing development field work living in a Maya village in the Peten during Masters research. From then on my language skills have been applied and improved in the field.
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Language Proficiency for Proposed Project
Indicate if language proficiency is necessary for your proposed project to be feasible. If you do not currently have the necessary language proficiency, indicate what you plan to do to ensure the feasibility of the project. Indicate if you have additional language study in progress or planned․ *
While I would not claim grammatical fluency outside my mother tongue, I am very comfortable communicating in 4 languages other than English. I am currently able to conduct workshops, teach and hold long and productive conversations about sustainable development in French, Spanish, Arabic and German and have focused my language learning on the vocabulary and concepts and phrases connected to the mission of sharing "WEFe Nexus Thinking" among stakeholders speaking these languages. In preparation for the Fulbright I am working to upgrade my fluency and intend to spend the summer before the Fellowship focusing on Maghreb Arabic and French. I plan to continue studying during the year in Morocco.
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Country Selection
- Why is this country (or countries) the best match for your project?
- What experiences have prepared you to undertake your project in this country (or countries)? Please describe your prior experiences in the host country/countries (if any).
Country Selection Essay *
Morocco epitomizes the challenges adressed by Water-Energy-Food-Ecology (WEFe) Nexus education, research and field application as it is itself a cultural and environmental nexus at the intersection of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa with a wide variety of regional ecotopes and cultural diversity.
As a Masters student in Regional and International Development I visited Tangier in 1997 with the Harvard Krokadiloes Acapella performance group and got a chance to learn about Morocco's environment and people.
In 2006, after starting my Ph.D. in Environmental Policy and Analysis I returned to Morocco with the US Embassy's "Musical Goodwill Ambassador" program, performing my own "Environmental Circus" performance tour around the country with my musician brother's rock band, performing popular English and Arabic rock songs infused with my original "melodic-mnemonic" science education songs and doing workshops on renewable energy and water conservation technologies.
Several times a year from 2001 to 2009 the US Embassy had been bringing us to perform throughout the MENA region and I had gotten to know many countries. We shared our cultural ambassadorship several times touring Syria, Bahrain, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, Cyprus and Jordan and India. In all of our tours we met with government and NGO representatives as well as with other musicians and artists. Morocco stood out for me when we spent time in conversation with NGOs and community leaders and scientists and learned of the country's challenges and ambitions.
The people of the country welcomed a blend of science and the arts put in service of meeting our sustainable development goals. I vowed to return one day.This Fulbright gives me the chance to make good on that vow and now the time is right as both my career trajectory and that of my wife put us in a place where a year in Morocco would fit in with our family plans perfectly so we can have the best long term impact and can serve best.
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Career Trajectory
- How will this Fulbright award fit into your career path and future goals?
- What is the trajectory you have followed, and what are your plans for the future?
Career Trajectory Essay *
The award will be the most impactful springboard for my career path intentions to build enduring sustainability projects between USF's Patel College of Global Sustainability and the High Atlas Foundation and other Moroccan institutions. I am following in the footsteps of my colleague, Geography Professor Emertus Thomas Crisman who taught Nexus studies on his Fulbright in Morocco and worked with HAF and is now mentoring a student there. I intend to build a permanent bridge that will serve as a consistent pathway for continuous exchanges and I intend to make many repeat visits there to strengthen the sinews of the relationships we form and ensure long-term projects are continually followed up and supported.
My trajectory started when I moved to Egypt for 5 years during my Ph.D. studies and decided to live in the impoverished community where I was studying sustainability technologies. I applied them to my own apartment in the slums of Darb Al Ahmar, got a US AID Small Infrastructure grant to train a team of local renewable energy system builders and got first hand experience with the costs and benefits and social and implementation challenges of appropriate technology. The experience led to another 5 years living in Germany where I formed an NGO , "Solar CITIES" and made repeated trips back to Cairo to ensure our projects continued.
Later, marrying a Palestinian development student, I moved to the US to teach and continued doing projects in the MENA region.
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Cultural Preparation
- Please address your familiarity with the host culture, and any other global experiences that prepare you to adjust successfully to life in the host country.
- What challenges do you expect to face as a foreign national in the host country?
- How will you adapt, address, or manage these challenges?
- Provide examples of your ability to be adaptable, flexible, culturally sensitive, collegial, and how you may serve as a cultural ambassador for the U.S.
Cultural Preparation Essay *
My mother, born & educated in Mosul and Baghdad where I visited as a child, . was sent to the US to study Social Sciences by my International Lawyer grandfather (he had been imprisioned for several years when she was little by the British Occupying Forces for writing about the illegalities of colonialism) Her ambition was to return to Iraq to share the fruits of the academic and social acumen she gained in our free and democratic nation of immigrants but fell in love with my Dad, an Irish American journalist who covered Middle Eastern issues, and stayed in the US to raise her family. Her brother came from Iraq to the US on a Fulbright to study Geology and her sister, after a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from U Michigan, received 2 Fulbright Scholar Awards to study the Ait Ndhir people of the Middle Atlas mountains in Morocco, where she and my beloved cousins lived for several years. Between their stories and my own visits to Morocco and more than 12 years studying & living in Indonesian & Guatemalan jungles, in Germany, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine (which included several years living in the slums of Darb Al Ahmar and working with the Zabaleen Trash Recycling communities, experiencing daily power cuts and water and fuel shortages) I have adapated myself to the challenges and stresses of development work. My wife comes from a West Bank agricultural village and we have spent time living with our family there and experiencing the deprivations that the military occupation and poverty have imposed on them. My experiences working in countries with a colonial legacy have prepared me with compassion and empathy, patience, understanding,flexibility, and a sense of humor that suggest living in Morocco will provide yet another joyous opportunity to meet the challenges my wife and I and our son, as a family of "sustainable development practitioners", have dedicated our life to and enhance our abilities to serve as best practice ambassadors!
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Teaching Preparation
- How will you make your teaching relevant to the culture(s) and language(s) of the host country?
- How will you adapt your materials and pedagogy to a different teaching environment in which your students’ first language may not be English?
Teaching Preparation Essay *
In the tenth year of her "Green Morocco Plan" the country is on the forefront of WEFe Nexus Thinking and has been a member of the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) since 2018. There has been a high demand for Water/Energy/Food/Ecology and Circular Economy teaching and partnerships, as evidenced by the calls for cooperation on the PRIMA and other sites involved in helping Morocoo meet all 17 of her UN SDGs. The "Agence de la Development Agricole" has a "Sustainable Development and Climate Change Focus" and the High Atlas Foundation, whom I am partnering with, is deeply involved with "Capacity Building", hosting "expert-led training sessions in a variety of fields to support skills transfer and accessible knowledge for communities in their pursuit of sustainable development."
Since this is precisely what I have been researching and teaching for two decades I am delighted now to be adapting my materials and my oral delivery into French and Arabic and shifting my focus from Egypt and Palestine to the regional communities in Marrakesh and the Atlas Mountains identified for us by the HAF. Following their lead I am excited to create the best pedagogical style and resources to support their vital capacity building. I see myself conducting hands-on workshops and, best of all, demonstrating the nexus solutions both in my own family's lifestyle and through the cutting edge Extensible Reality tools I research and work with at USF.
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HERE IS SOME WORDING I USED IN MY LETTER TO THE PRIMA ORGANIZATION, RESPONDING TO THEIR CALL FOR PARTNERSHIPS, AND TO DR. OUARANI AT MOHAMMED V POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY:
We are a Masters Degree Granting Program at the University of South Florida, Tampa with robust community partnerships ("The Rosebud Continuum Eco-Science Center, Solar CITIES Biogas Education NGO) through which we demonstrate WEFe Nexus technologies at the local level.
We teach hands-on praxis oriented courses such as "Navigating the WEFe Nexus", "Climate Mitigation and Adaptation", "Waste Not Want Not: Reconsidering Refuse as Resource", "Envisioning Sustainability" (a science communications course) and "Sustaianbility Design Laboratory" (a workshop course integrating GIS and Extensible Reality (XR) technologies for data visualation and landscape simulations that invite stakeholder participation in decision making through presenting alternative future scenarios.)
I am applying for a Fulbright Scholar award to spend the 2025-2026 academic year teaching (80%) and conducting research (20%) in Morocco , invited by the High Atlas Foundation to implement Nexus praxis teaching and technologies in regions they have identified for highest positive impact. I plan to apply the last 15 years of research I've been doing into the implementation of home and community scale "food-waste-to-fuel-and-fertilizer" biodigesters and waste-elimination "trashcrete" production systems and share how we are using XR technologies and AI to spread expertise and Nexus solutions at the local level.
We are seeking University collaborators and a letter of invitation from a partner in the University system who will work with us and whose work in the development of cost-effective and sustainable technologies and transformative adaptation would benefit from my commitment and presence and with whom we can set up long-term relationship for exchanges between our Universities and projects.
The deadline for the letter of invitation to meet the demands of the Fulbright application is September 16th.
Keywords:
Home biogas, cost-effective community and home scale nexus technologies, Water/Energy/Food/Ecology Nexus Thinking, Zero Waste, Circular Economy, Trashcrete, Trash Art, Precious Plastics, Solar CITIES, Sustainable Food Systems, Permaculture, XR technology, Digital Twinning, Landscape Simulations for Improved Land Use and Climate Resilience, Use of AI in Sustainable Development, High Impact and Adaptive Pedagogy, Institutional Partnerships, Revitalizing Agroforestry systems, Water conservation through Fertigation, Soil building, Cultural Exchange for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation.
For the last quarter century, since I became a graduate student of Regional and International Development in Urban Planning at UCLA and lived at the Los Angeles Urban Eco-village, I have been "life-testing" nexus technology solutions in my own living spaces, designing and using composting toilets, urban household biodigesters, hand-made solar hot water systems and self-installed photovoltaics and small wind, rooftop gardens, hydroponics, aquaponic and aeroponic systems, slow sand schmutzdecke water filters, fertigation systems, rain water catchment systems, food forests and permaculture designs. I lived in the informal communities of Cairo, Egypt for 5 years implementing these systems at home and teaching them at AUC and the Wadi Environmental Science Center and my family and I have been living with these systems for the past 8 years, in a hybrid off-grid system at Rosebud Continuum Eco-Science Center affiliated with our University. I would like to bring these experiences to a long-term partnership with like-minded sustainable development researchers and advocates in Morocco.
My wife, doing her Masters degree Capstone research and Geosciences GIS certificate in our Water Concentration at USF is already deeply influenced by his work and we will be visiting Mohammed VI Polytechnic University when we are there this fall. Dr. Ouarani is providing one of the letters of invitation for this Fulbright opportunity so we can synergize his work with ours and that of the High Atlas Foundation.
We know we can eliminate garbage through many of the techniques we have been working on. My wife and I haven’t taken out the garbage in 6 years and instead have used our trash to create beautiful plastic-sequestering Florida wildlife sculptures that don’t look like trash, art pieces indistinguishable from sculptures one sees at Florida theme parks. School kids visit them and play and climb on them and learn about how “garbage” can be easily and economically turned into what PRIMA calls NexusArt.
The Fulbright Program has been pivotal in fostering international understanding and peace, creating a diverse and inclusive "Fulbright Family." This poster highlights my family’s multi-generational commitment to this mission, from my uncle’s scholarship from Baghdad to the U.S., to my aunt’s groundbreaking research on Berber tribes and women’s evolving status in Morocco, and my mother’s work in Syria. These experiences have profoundly shaped our dedication to social justice, environmental sustainability, and cultural exchange. Inspired by these ties, I’ve contributed to the Middle East and North Africa, including creating a "Musical Goodwill Ambassador" Environmental Circus program. The Fulbright experience has taught us that it transcends cultural and historical barriers, fostering lifelong learning, service, and the aspiration to leave a positive impact on global society.
The Fulbright Program has been pivotal in fostering international understanding and peace, creating a diverse and inclusive "Fulbright Family." This poster highlights my family’s multi-generational commitment to this mission, from my uncle’s scholarship from Baghdad to the U.S., to my aunt’s groundbreaking research on Berber tribes and women’s evolving status in Morocco, and my mother’s work in Syria. These experiences have profoundly shaped our dedication to social justice, environmental sustainability, and cultural exchange. Inspired by these ties, I’ve contributed to the Middle East and North Africa, including creating a "Musical Goodwill Ambassador" Environmental Circus program. The Fulbright experience has taught us that it transcends cultural and historical barriers, fostering lifelong learning, service, and the aspiration to leave a positive, sustainable impact on global society through innovative initiatives and collaborative efforts.
The Fulbright Program has been pivotal in fostering international understanding and peace, creating a diverse and inclusive "Fulbright Family." This poster highlights my own consanguineal family’s multi-generational commitment to this mission, from my uncle’s scholarship from Baghdad to the U.S., to my aunt’s groundbreaking research on Berber tribes and women’s evolving status in Morocco, and my mother’s social science work in Syria. These experiences have profoundly shaped our dedication to social justice, environmental sustainability, and cultural exchange. Inspired by these ties, I’ve contributed to the Middle East and North Africa, studying sustainable development in Egypt for six years, including creating a "Musical Goodwill Ambassador" Environmental Circus program that traveled from Syria to Morocco. The Fulbright experience has taught us that it transcends cultural and historical barriers, fostering lifelong learning, service, and the aspiration to leave a positive, sustainable impact on global society through innovative initiatives and collaborative efforts.
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