On a misty March morning, students and staff embarked on a tour of the Naval Cemetery Landscape, not far from Pratt’s Brooklyn campus, to learn about the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative’s efforts to expand public access to green space in the borough.
The walk was one of many events held during Pratt Earth Action Week Spring 2025, organized by the Pratt Sustainability Center, which included several other neighborhood excursions. Arthur Kay, Foundation Department coordinator, guided students on a walking tour to Fort Greene Park, inviting them on an imaginative journey through Brooklyn’s glacial origins, while faculty members in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment co-led a soil-sampling expedition throughout Bushwick.
Back on campus, students participated in the semester’s second trash audit, sorting through lunchtime waste as part of a broader composting initiative. Others engaged in an exercise to imagine a waste-free future, learned how to propagate plants, explored mycelium structures with the help of Legos, and joined a creative workshop to cultivate closer connections to nature.
Held once each semester, Pratt Earth Action invites students, faculty, and staff to celebrate ongoing environmental efforts on campus and encourages deeper engagement with the climate crisis in the classroom and beyond. For the past two years, these and other commitments have earned Pratt a STARS Gold rating in the Sustainable Campus Index, with especially high scores in curriculum, research, and campus engagement.
“Pratt Earth Action Week events show how deeply our students, faculty, and staff are committed to a sustainable future. It’s a week of action—but it represents work that happens year-round,” said Carolyn Shafer, director of the Pratt Sustainability Center. “It is where that innovation becomes visible, celebrated, and connected.”
This semester’s programming reflected those strengths, showcasing research, dialogue, and creative work rooted in sustainability across disciplines. Faculty from the Center for Critical Discard Research discussed new works on climate and environmental justice, environmental history, and green gentrification, while an exhibition spotlighted furniture designs from Interior Design students after they traveled to Rwanda to learn from artisans.
In what has become something of a tradition on Pratt’s campus, students reassembled the Public Sphere, a “counter-classroom” that hosts workshops, talks, and public activations on design thinking, climate action, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The all-day event featured scent ceremonies led by Visiting Professor of Pratt Integrative Courses Alexis Karl, discussions on social action, and a visit from the School of Design’s Mobile Kitchen.
For students, faculty, and staff, Pratt Earth Action Week was an extended meditation on the environment that brought together students, staff, and faculty, both a reminder and a celebration of the many ways we can work together to create a more sustainable future.