Today we went to Victoria University of Wellington and toured the campus. Something I found interesting was that the institution was younger than Whittier. I guess in my head I just assumed that all these schools were much older due to the architecture. Many of the buildings we entered throughout the day were old, which make it difficult to make them more sustainable. After touring the buildings, we listened to a few presentations. The presentation that stood out to me was the living Pa Project. The living Pa is a building being constructed on the campus which will act as a public space encompassing Māori traditions and values. The first floor will be reserved for ceremonies, the second floor for education, and the third floor for office space. The building will act as a place where Māori and non-Māori students, staff, and the public will be able to interact and “park their canoes”. This reference encompasses making the building a second home for people. After the presentations, we sat in on a lecture for a global scholars class. In the lecture, we went into detail on the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This was interesting and informative as we had already done some prior reading on the goals for this class earlier, before we left for the trip. I learned just how controversial the goals seem to be, with many people arguing that there are too many of them. Others also seem to think that one of the goals, which is economic growth, stops the progression of the other goals, such as climate action. Overall, I learned that all the goals relate to each other and tie into each other.
