SSLUG (Students for Sustainable Living and Urban Gardening) is working on the NAU campus and in the Flagstaff community to promote community-based urban gardening, fruit tree planting, and research on regional and traditional agricultural practices. The group has a dynamic history, with its roots extending from the garden designed and constructed by Ian McDonald in 200(3?) as part of his Masters of Arts in Sustainable Communities Thesis. Since then, the garden has consistently grown to the point where it is now primarily managed by Susan Nyoka, the Campus Organic Gardener. While also working in the garden, SSLUG as a student group is focusing on grassroots community organizing, active democracy, and engaged pedagogy in conjunction with several First Year Seminar Courses, and is conducting projects on sustainable living practices, composting, art and outreach, and medicinal plants.
Two SSLUG members work on the compost pile in the SSLUG garden on south campus
Achievements: SSLUG has organized annual seed exchange events for campus and the community, held community cold frame workshops, and revived the lapsed composting system on campus. The composting efforts have expanded to develop a spin-off Action Research Team called “VeloComposting”, dedicated to moving mass amounts of compost by carbon neutral means: the bicycle! SSLUG helps maintain our diverse demonstration garden showing methods and techniques for growing food at the high elevation of Flagstaff. In the process, this has brought hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students, University staff, community members, youth groups, and other volunteers into intimate contact with both native and non-native edible plants, both indigenous farming practices and non-native cultivation techniques, deepening and fostering a sense of place and relationship to the land.
Community Partners:
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) – (seed exchange group)
Indigenous Studies program – (medicinal herb group)
Grounds/Facilities – (composting group)
NAU Dining – (composting group)
Exodus Outdoor Adventure youth group – (composting)
Wider Network Partners through the Campus Organic Gardener
Want to watch more…follow this link on the SSLUG Garden http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybFX2hmg3JI