The theme for the 2024 class was climate resilience. Much attention has been focused in the last few years on alarming declines in water levels in the Great Salt Lake. Students in this year's course explored factors that affect water levels, from individual landscaping choices to agriculture to indigenous knowledge for revitalizing and restoring wetlands.
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Students on this project decided to work on a social media campaign to help people who want to conserve water in their own landscaping. They identified groups who would need different levels of information in order to take action on implementing water-wise landscape principles.
The objectives of this project are:
- convey information to the public
- connect users to resources
- expand potential audience for this information
- equip local government with resources
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Students working on this project note the attention that has gone to agricultural water use in the Great Salt Lake Basin, particularly to grow alfalfa. Local reporting claims that as much as 79% of the state of Utah's available water is diverted for farming, prompting calls for water conservation in the agricultural sector. In this project, students explored the nuances involved. Why grow alfalfa? What are the barriers to implementing conservation? How can the disconnect between farmers and the general public be bridged? What options for conservation are currently available and effective?
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The Bear River is the largest watershed contributing to water in the Great Salt Lake. The students involved in this project decided to work as a subgroup of the RISES project, working to restore Indigenous socio-environmental systems in the Bear River Basin and beyond.
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