Urban Sustainability: round 2

After talking with a friend last night and reporting all my learnings from Urban Sustainability, she encouraged me to post some more information.  And I agree with her so here is a random list of other things I learned at Learnapalooza's Urban Sustainability session.  (All from other attendees!)

*Apparently Ford (yes the car company) has been doing some major research on sustainability.  One of the attendees said there was a sustainability fair in Logan Square a few months or weeks ago and they had a stand set-up.  (By the way, how do I find out about these fairs?  I want to go!)  
She said they invented a fuel for vehicles that uses water and has no exhaust.  The military is using it right now.  It's amazing, but it has some problems.  #1 the fact that water is a nonrenewable resource and not readily available everywhere.
Go Ford!  Keep inventing!

*Have you heard about the current trend of citizen science?  

Citizen science is a term used for projects or ongoing program of scientific work in which individual volunteers or networks of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation. (source)

I have because it was a growing department while I was at the planetarium (for finding planets, etc.).  It's also a growing trend for sustainability!  One of the attendees said there was actually a project in the south side of Chicago about air quality and they were able to use the results in court.  
During a google search of citizen science sustainability Yale comes up first.
If you're interested you can read about many more projects HERE.

*Interested in CSAs or co-ops?

Community-supported agriculture (CSA; sometimes known as community-shared agriculture) is an alternative, locally-based economic model of agriculture and food distribution. (source)

CSAs usually involve paying a certain amount (the one I saw was for $40-I'm sure they vary) and you receive a box full of vegetables & fruit from a local farm every week.  (You don't get to choose what you receive.  It's what's in season.

A cooperative ("coop") or co-operative ("co-op") is an autonomous association of persons who voluntarily cooperate for their mutual, social, economic, and cultural benefit. (source)

Co-ops generally involve a monthly fee or similar investment.

Now that the definitions are out of the way...

Those of you who live in Chicago and maybe you don't want or need a CSA box every week or you're not interested in the fee of co-ops or one isn't convenient to you, one of the attendees mentioned an answer!  Edible alchemy.  It seems like a mixture of both.  In place of the fee for a co-op, you're asked to volunteer once a month, which personally I think would be fun.  If your hesitation with a CSA is worrying about not being able to use the food quickly enough and it might go bad, it appears you can order an edible alchemy bag on weeks that you choose to do so.  There are several pick-up points around Chicago so there should be one convenient to you!

There you go, friends!  There's my recap.  Hopefully something was interesting for you!

p.s. the art I mentioned