Landsbergen’s presentation will review regional, national, and international sources of climate change and provide methodologies for matching research needs to the design process. She will provide case studies that demonstrate how makers of visual culture can move climate change communications forward through cooperation with scientists.

The day-long workshop is sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Design Studies at Pratt and will host more than 20 speakers on topics ranging from ecology and biomimicry to packaging design and life-cycle analysis.

Landsbergen will start her summer by traveling to Michigan to study aspen and pine forests with the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology (EEOB) at Ohio State University, where she has an appointment as a visiting research scholar.

She will then be presenting a research poster, “Sneaky Botany: Engaging Art & Design Students in Applied Botany Through the Medium of Gardening,” at the annual scientific conference of the Botanical Society of America in Columbus, OH, July 7–11, 2012.

She will also be presenting a paper at the 97th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in Portland OR, Aug. 5–10, 2012. Her paper will address “How do white oak trees respond structurally when their physical environment is changed by repeated fires?”

Landsbergen teaches ecology, scientific applications for the artist, and honors seminars addressing sustainability. Her area of scientific expertise is forest ecosystems and sustainability with research focusing on forest growth and function in urban and remote ecosystems.

Student examines rocks outside the Byrd Polar Research Center

Kim Landsbergen, an associate professor at CCAD, is having her Liberal Arts class further their understanding of scientific research by taking them to cutting-edge research centers and sites in Columbus.

The class traveled most recently to the Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) at The Ohio State University. BPRC is recognized internationally as a leader in polar and alpine research.

While there, the 20 students were able to tour the center guided by three Ph.D. candidates. They explored the U.S. Polar Rock Repository, which is a national facility that provides rock samples for research, education, and museum use.

They were also able to walk through the center’s cold storage facility. The freezer compartments in the building store ice cores at -30 to -40 degrees Celsius.

“My goal for the field trips in the ecology class is for students to see—live, in person—the vital ecological issues that are right under their noses, here in central Ohio,” said Landsbergen.

The visit was not just a one way experience. The Ph.D. candidates asked CCAD students to help them in being able to appropriately and artistically display their scientific findings.

Students bundle up in a cold storage facility

Students chimed in with suggestions including color coding satellite images based on elevation and altering displays of photographs so visitors could understand their scientific process visually.

“It is important to be involved with current scientific research and other news topics because, as artists, we have to be able to reflect what is going on in the world in order to be successful,” said Joelle Baker, senior in Fine Arts, and a participant in the BPRC trip.

The class went on a total of five trips this year.  Along with the Byrd Polar Research Center, they also visited restored ecosystems in Columbus, Franklin Park Conservatory’s Community Garden Campus, Grange Insurance Audubon Center, and SWACO, which is central Ohio’s main landfill.

“It is important for students, especially ones who are actively engaged in the creative world, to learn by doing and seeing,” said Landsbergen. “You can read about these issues all day, but it is something completely different to be able to see a landfill and the waste or talk to an actual student who has seen the glaciers they are reading about.”

Design on endangered species condoms

There are now seven billion people on the planet and counting.

CCAD faculty member, Kim Landsbergen, who teaches in the Liberal Arts, division celebrated the birth of the seventh billionth person by talking about issues of sustainability and population growth in her classes.

Landsbergen is a member of the Center for Biological Diversity and is passing on awareness of their Seven Billion and Counting campaign to her Biomimicry and Ecology classes.

Landsbergen’s classes watched a documentary, Manufactured Landscapes, which discusses human resource consumption and land use.

After watching the film, Erin McKenna, a senior Fine Arts student, changed her purchasing patterns by reusing as many products as possible and only shopping at thrift stores.

The Center for Biological Diversity’s campaign goal is to focus on trying to manage population growth by connecting it to environmental problems. One of the campaign’s awareness projects is the Endangered Species Condoms, which they encourage participants to  pass out. The condoms have relevant  phrases such as, “wrap with care, save a polar bear,” “hump smarter, save the snail darter,” and “wear a condom now, save the spotted owl.”

“The ‘endangered species condoms’ were a far more effective way of tying together the concepts of global population and environmental integrity then lecturing,” Landsbergen said.

“I not only thought the condoms were hilarious, but they also got people talking about the issues,” added McKenna.

To learn more about the Center for Biological Diversity, visit their website.

Student looks at display.

A decade ago, the worlds of science and art collided in an albino bunny named Alba. Alba was normal by all accounts—until the lights were turned out. Then, thanks to an intervention by Brazilian-born, Chicago-based artist Eduardo Kac, the fluffy white rabbit glowed neon green as she hopped around the room.

Today, the same science that allowed Kac to transfer the “glowing genes” from a jellyfish to a rabbit egg is being taught—albeit on a more basic level—at CCAD. Why is this important? Because in today’s world, concerns about cost and sustainability are causing artists, designers, and scientists to find more and more to learn from one another.

“The point is not to teach the students how to create glowing animals,” says Julie Posey, chair of CCAD’s science department. “It’s to get them thinking about how science can be used not only to influence their work, but to create it.”

Student looks under microscope.

In CCAD science courses, students examine cadavers; dissect eyeballs, hearts, and brains; test body fat and blood pressure levels; extract DNA (creating glowing bacteria à la Kac); and explore a myriad of other experiments and observations designed to help them think differently about art and design.

“The small but imperative details that make the heart beat, the issue of sustainability, potential health hazards—we teach students all of this to give them the information they’ll need to step back and take a second, deeper look at their work,” Posey says.

The newest example of art and design blending with science is taught by Dean of Industrial and Interior Design Carl Garant and ecologist Kim Landsbergen, who is an associate professor of cross-disciplinary studies and sustainability research. Together they have created a course in biomimicry, in which students explore the application of nature’s solutions to a wide variety of design challenges.

Although there are a few other schools of art and design that teach biomimicry, CCAD is the only one at which the course is fully co-taught by a scientist and a designer. “Nature’s diversity presents us with a wide selection of viable design strategies that are sustainable and worthy of recognition and application in today’s world,” Garant says.

If this is the first you’ve heard of biomimicry, it probably won’t be the last. Biomimicry is being pursued by everyone from InterfaceFLOR, a leader in commercial flooring, to the consumer product giant Proctor & Gamble. In fact, Proctor and Gamble’s Behavioral Science Organization (the branch of the company that works with biomimicry) has already hosted an intern from CCAD: Joel van Gilder, a senior Industrial Design major who participated in the inaugural biomimicry course last spring.

Students listens during science lab.

Students in the course research the unique biological and ecological characteristics of a particular insect and then develop a variety of design solutions informed by their work. Like many science-focused courses at CCAD, the biomimicry class takes advantage of the resources at nearby Ohio State University—in this case, with a visit to the entomology collection in OSU’s Museum of Biodiversity, where students come face-to-face with the biology of their organisms, measuring and drawing their insect subjects. Students ultimately present their biologically inspired designs in portfolio-quality, self-published books.

“Students cannot learn in a vacuum,” Garant says. “Biomimicry asks them to look to nature for design inspiration and to think about the sustainability ramifications surrounding their design choices. It’s about understanding the impact and importance of the design process as we strive to design more intelligently.”