Chris in Cornwall

As you may have realized, our year here – and my course – is rapidly coming to an end. For an end of the year field trip, we ventured down to the Southwest coast of England to study urban regeneration in Cornwall. Additionally, we stopped through Bath, an old Roman city and home to some amazing natural baths. Just outside of Bath, we toured a really cool new green building that is designed to minimize its impact on natural resources! We stayed in a small town nestled into the Cornish coast – a beautiful 10-minute walk to a ridiculous beach. The coast was absolutely stunning…

Cornwall was once an affluent mining region, and location of many incredible engineering innovations (like the hoverboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoverboard). However, mining has been in sharp decline for the past century, and the area has suffered from economic decay and is now one of the poorest areas in the EU. We spent a good amount of time talking with the developers on the many projects underway to give Cornwall a facelift. I was impressed by the need for holistic and integrated solutions that go beyond injecting a single industry to save the day (which essentially brought about the downfall in the first place). We looked at issues from education, to housing, to resources – all in all, it was a really good way to interact with a complex problem and link tangible efforts toward a solution.

We also were able to visit some of the old bustling mines. A few have survived which excavate china-clay, commonly used in china pottery. It was really interesting to see the mining process as well as the scars it leaves on the landscape. One such scar has been transformed into one of England’s newest tourist successes, the Eden Project.

The Eden Project is an effort to connect normal people to the importance of and our utter dependence on plants. In order to accomplish this, the Eden Project has converted a massive abandoned mine pit into a few humongous biomes, or greenhouse spheres that are home to plant life in both tropical and Mediterranean climates. This place is stunning and has been a huge hit. I was seriously impressed and inspired by Eden’s innovative educational mission. Makes me want to be in education – especially as I feel average suburban living moving further and further away from tangible interaction with the natural environment. This in effect blurs the connections we have to the rest of society and the world at large. Where does our trash go? Where did our apples come from? T-shirts? Bread? What happens to our pee pee? We exist in blind isolation from the systems that sustain us. The Eden Project does an amazingly creative job at reconnecting us to our surroundings. This is really, really important – I think my new life mission might be to come along-side people who are committed to this same mission. Just check the tags in your shoe and try to untie the effect that particular purchase has on your neighbor around the world (in both positive and negative ways). Anyhoo, visiting the Eden Project was one of my highlights this year and I’d love to chat about this stuff if any of you have any opinions either way! http://www.edenproject.com

At the end of our trip, we were able to explore a large wind farm in Cornwall. It was a great opportunity to discuss the impacts of wind power, and actually go inside a wind turbine to get an idea of how they work and learn what the wind buzz is all about.

Aside from educational musings, our group snuck in a beach soccer match, and few big nights out at some hilarious, small town clubs, morning runs along the stunning coast, and some good time together on what was one of our last outings together. Makes me wish this year was beginning again. Guess that’s a good thing…certainly never had the same inspiring nostalgia from my cubicle at Boeing. Love to you all from da UK!