01-29-2015+Assignment 

I spent most of my time looking at the Wikipedia entries that were biographical. During my time as a student I feel as if I have read extensively on the theories, terms, and principles that are central to sustainability, but I have not learned a lot about the people who pioneered these ideas. I found Gregory Bateson especially interesting because of his work with systems thinking, but mainly I was intrigued by his unique background. He truly shows how interdisciplinary the field of sustainability is and how different field of science can relate back to the environment. His story reminded me of the growing movement to design based off principles found in nature. I recently discovered the website AskNature that uses examples from nature to inspire their designs. Using a vast database of information on ecology and natural phenomenon, you can type any kind of action into the browser and it will return results based on examples from nature. I added the link to the wiki under “NGOs”, although I imagine it could serve other purposes as well. This idea was also echoed in the Wikipedia entry for John Todd, who has applied ecological design beyond products to systems of organization. I also particularly enjoyed the work done by Dr. C. S. Holling and the field of ecological economics, which may be a potential research topic. From his page I also looked into the idea of panarchy, or a government that encompasses all beings. This is a term that I had not discovered before that I also would consider doing research on.

The three research topics I am interested in are ecological design, ecological economics, and panarchy. I would focus either on the potential applications of each principle and their limits, or the main champions of these principles.