• Do we know sustainability when we see it?
  Good examples of sustainability are all around us.
• Defining sustainability
  Everyone has a unique view of sustainability.
• Fishing for sustainability, Part 1
  Dealing with communities with competing goals and values.
• Fishing for sustainability, Part 2
  The sustainable game of resources.
• You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone
  Extreme affluence and extreme poverty are not sustainable.
• Community planning, Part 1: Outreach.
  Practicing the neighborhood planning process.
• Community planning, Part 2: Assessment.
  Is that plan sustainable?
• Community planning, Part 3: Whole systems.
  Synthesizing sustainable plans.
• Advanced sustainability
  Some giant steps to a more sustainable world.

Do we know sustainability when we see it?

Time: This activity takes 1/2 hour.
Ideal number of participants: 10 people.
Key concept: Sustainability is already all around us.

• Pass around a collection of images and short writings such as poems and quotes. Although you might want most of the examples to be inspiring and positive, you could include some that evoke negative reactions, or that seem to illustrate 'unsustainability.' Each person should select one.
• Allow one minute for people to make notes to themselves. Each person should consider how the image or words they selected represent an aspect of sustainability, or unsustainability.
• Ask for a volunteer to begin. The volunteer should take one or two minutes to describe their selection and what it says about sustainability to them. Ask for other volunteers, repeating this until all have talked.
• Conclusions. Sustainability is all around us, and always has been, at least in bits and pieces. Sustainability is not an entirely new concept, and more often than not is not explicitly called sustainability. What other ways are there for us to sensitize ourselves and our eyes to our surroundings?

Defining Sustainability

Time: This activity takes 1/2 hour.
Ideal number of participants: 10 people.
Key concept: We bring unique perspectives to the sustainability table.

• Ask people to think of two words that come to mind related to sustainability. Allow 30 seconds for thinking.
• Ask participants to speak their two words aloud, writing them quickly on a board or large sheet of paper.
• As a group, pull these words together into a definition, making sentences out of the words.
• Conclusions. A diversity of views and perspectives is vital to developing a complete picture or definition of sustainability. We each bring our unique perspectives to the table, and in coming together we are made aware of the range of issues in our communities. We need to develop this kind of community definition as much as we need to create individual definitions to move toward sustainability.

Fishing for sustainability, Part 1

Time: This exercise is designed as an assignment and/or basis for class discussion.
Ideal number of participants: 4 or more people.
Key concept: This exercise helps people to envision complexity and define sustainable futures within communities with competing goals and values.

Discuss the following questions after reading the Story of Northwest salmon fisheries by J. Gary Lawrence.

• If reducing the effects of agriculture on fish runs affects the viability of agriculture and, therefore, agricultural communities, are we willing to sacrifice agricultural communities to save fishing communities?
• Is society willing to live more compactly and/or limit population to reduce the urbanization effect on fisheries habitat?
• Are we willing to bear the true cost of energy, with all of the resulting ramifications for our choices and our behaviors as well as the probable economic dislocation among industries with high energy demand, to protect fish runs and, thereby, increase the viability of commercial and sport fishing industries? Would society be willing to protect those for whom increased energy cost would be a significant burden?
• Should we, and how would we, assign value to the social and cultural benefits of preserving species, communities or lifestyles? Should those who would value different things still have an obligation to pay?

Fishing for sustainability, Part 2
(the game of resources)

Time: This activity takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Ideal number of participants: 12 to 16 people.
Key concept: Responding to limited carrying capacities involves cooperation.
Developed by Richard Conlin and Dennis Meadows.

CONCEPT
This is a sustainability game involving the fishing industry and the "Greenfish" population. Greenfish are principally caught off the coast of Alaska. The fishing industry is just beginning to catch Greenfish. Players will attempt to maximize their profits within the changing context of the fishery ecosystem.

OBJECT OF THE GAME
To create a sustainable Greenfish fishery which can survive for the foreseeable future. Also to make as much money as possible during the course of the game. The game is designed to be played by 4 teams, with each team optimally having 3 or 4 members. Each team is a fishing company.

PROCEDURE

You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone

Time: This activity takes about 5 minutes for people to do on their own and can be followed up with general discussion in a group.
Ideal number of participants: 4 or more people.
Key concept: Extreme poverty and extreme affluence are both unsustainable.

• Take the furniture out of your home. Leave a few old blankets, a kitchen table, maybe a wooden chair. You have never had a bed, remember?
• Throw out your clothes. Each person in the family may keep the oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. The head of the family has the only pair of shoes.
• All kitchen appliances have vanished. Keep a box of matches, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt, a handful of onions, a dish of dried beans. Rescue those moldy potatoes from the garbage can. They are tonight's meal.
• Dismantle the bathroom, shut off the running water, take out the wiring and lights and everything that runs by electricity.
• Take away the house and move the family to the toolshed.
• By now all the other houses in the neighborhood have disappeared; instead, there are shanties - for the fortunate ones.
• Cancel all the newspapers and magazines. Throw out the books. You won't miss them - you are now illiterate. One radio is left for the whole shanty-town.
• No more mail carriers, firefighters, government services. The two-classroom school is three miles away, but only two of your seven children attend anyway, and they walk.
• No hospital, no doctor. The nearest clinic is now ten miles away, and you get there by bus or bicycle, if you're lucky enough to have one.
• Throw out your bankbooks, stock certificates, pension plans, insurance policies. You now have a net worth of $5.
• Get out and start cultivating your three acres. Try hard to raise $300 in cash crops because your landlord wants one-third and your moneylender wants 10%.
• Find some way for your children to bring in a little extra money so you have something to eat most days. But it won't be enough to keep bodies healthy - so lop off 25 to 30 years of your life.

Community Planning: Part 1, Outreach

Time: This activity takes about 1/2 hour.
Ideal number of participants: 10 people.
Key concept: It is difficult to include diversity.

• Brainstorm. Who are the key actors, and who are the interest groups who should be represented at a community meeting to deal with the proposals?
• Assume a role as a representative of one of the identified interest groups.
• Get together with one of the other concerned community people. In 1 or 2 minutes, one of you will invite and try to convince your partner to attend the upcoming community meeting. Consider what group the other represents and why it's important that they're represented, thinking of sustainability. Meanwhile, the person being invited can keep in mind how busy they are, and how many meetings they already attend; you're not easily convinced...
• Now, trade partners. People who invited should now get the experience of being invited - if you were just inviting people, than find someone who was an invitee, and switch roles. Spend the next couple of minutes with this person.
• Conclusions. Discuss the concepts of diversity, outreach, participation, inclusiveness, and information sharing. What is the value of diversity? How difficult is it to get people to meetings? Why don't you like meetings? How do diversity and participation relate to sustainability?

Community Planning: Part 2, Assessment

Time: This activity takes about 1/2 hour.
Ideal number of participants: 10 people.
Key concept: Is that plan sustainable?

• Quickly mark your choices on your own checklist, as to how you feel abut the proposals for your community. Take five minutes. Of course you don't know everything about it. Use what impressions and information you have.
• Hone in on points you feel strongly about, both positively and negatively.
• Report positive findings. Invite responses. First list and discuss five areas people feel the plan does well. The plan is to be applauded for these successes.
• Report negative findings. List five areas where people feel the plan isn't sustainable.
• Conclusions. Is that plan sustainable? Does a checklist make evaluating the plan easier? What other resources, tools, strategies could you use?

Community Planning: Part 3, Whole systems

Time: This activity takes about 1/2 hour.
Ideal number of participants: 10 people.
Key concept: Synthesizing sustainable plans.

• Form groups of two or three people each. Agree on one or two elements of proposals people would most like to work on.
• Work with your group for the next 15 minutes on these issues. Develop recommendations to improve the plan with respect to your issues, with lists of ideas, and/or drawings.
• Report back to the complete group. Discuss what people learned. Tie it all together.
• Conclusions. Review the entire neighborhood planning process. The scenario and corresponding activities included the overview, increasing participation, applying a sustainable checklist, and planning and designing for whole system sustainability.

Advanced sustainability

Time: This activity takes your lifetime.
Ideal number of participants: The human population.
Key concept: Sustainability begins with you.

• Turn off your computer.
• Talk to your neighbors.
• Unplug your television.
• Don't eat anything that comes in a package.
• Don't buy anything that comes in a box.
• Help enact a maximum wage law.
• Help replace majority rule with proportional representation.
• Grow your own vegetables.
• Bury your car.
• Have your power lines disconnected.
• Democratize your workplace; start a union or a collective.