Role Playing for a Greener Future
In the late fall, a group of 30 Hebrew University graduate students checked into a hotel in the Golan Heights. They were on a mission: to determine whether to approve the installation of 39 energy-generating wind turbines in the central Golan, at a site known as Ruach Bereshit (Genesis Wind).
The students were enrolled in a multi-disciplinary workshop on the environment, an immersive course that analyzes complex, real-world environmental dilemmas in Israel – by conducting a simulation. The course begins with a series of preparatory meetings, where the students met with stakeholders, studied the complexities of the topic, and learned to communicate across disciplines – no small feat, considering their disparate backgrounds: agriculture, social sciences, public health, science, and law. During the three-day workshop, the students worked in groups to reflect upon, and represent, various stakeholders’ positions. The ultimate goal was to reach a compromise-solution, using conflict resolution methods, and reaching a win-win situation.
"The workshop took us far off the beaten track, where we encountered residents and professionals with a variety of opinions. Talking with them, we discovered that harnessing wind power isn’t a straightforward issue – rather, it has many sides and opinions. I couldn’t have gained such deep insight into the process by sitting in a classroom – we had to travel to the site and meet with the people involved first-hand."
- Yitzhak Nussbaum, Graduate Student
The multi-disciplinary workshop on the environment has been offered since the 1970s, with Prof. Itay Fischhendler teaching it for the last fifteen years. For the last four years, he has co-taught the course with Dr. Efrat Sheffer from the Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. They are joined by Adv. Eran Ettinger, Deputy Director of Environmental Resources at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, whose academic background spans agriculture and law.
"This workshop is my favorite course to teach. It's a great opportunity, bringing together academic theory and a real-life environmental problem - by introducing students to decision-makers and industry. By the end of the workshop, I can really see how the students' thinking has developed. By participating they gain skills that will serve them well in the workforce - teaching them to identify environment problems and develop different solutions."
- Prof. Itay Fischhendler
This year, the course focused on wind turbines in the Golan, and students met with a variety of people and groups with a vested interest in the matter, including kibbutzim who want to rent out their land and offer jobs; environmentalists who spoke for the birds; the Ministry of Energy that wants to promote green energy, the planning authorities, and more.
Next year, the topic will be egg farming in Israel, which faces its own set of challenges, resulting in a lose-lose situation: Israeli chickens are worse off compared with other OECD coops, while caps and quotas result in higher consumer prices. While real-life regulators have failed to resolve the stalemate, it might just be a group of Hebrew University students that comes up with the perfect solution!