The LDI addresses the profound need for education (K 12, higher, professional, adult/continuing) that interconnects decisions to sustain and regenerate local and global land resources. It promotes primary school student awareness of systems and interrelationships, middle school student experiences that interrelate energy, economics, environment and people, and high school class related activities that apply computer technology to sustainable and regenerative land-based resources. The LDI can help public school teachers address proficiency requirements such as the integrated environmental land based decision making and environmental impact assessment requirements of Indiana’s new Advanced Science Core40 course. The LDI also supports alternative Not For Profit environmental education. Currently, LDI personnel are supporting K 12 and Not for Profit environmental education through service as liaison to Ball State’s Institute of PDS schools, implementing studio projects that design environmental education facilities for local schools, and leading and participating in PDS school and not for profit environmental education visioning sessions.

The LDI also increases the ability to apply advanced understanding and innovative tools (including computer technologies) to address interrelationships among energy, economics, environment, and human interventions and to promote ecologically and culturally responsible land decisions in university curricula. It provides unique opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, from across the nation, to advance their understanding of ecologically responsible, culturally relevant, and economically viable land management, planning and design that regenerates the health and productivity of the ecological and cultural land resource.