Community Outreach
Appalachian State University’s Sustainable Development Program, with support from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and local communities, has carried out community outreach in this region since 1997.
This partnership with local communities has established land use and recycling initiatives in Boone as well as the rural community of Cove Creek and parts of Watauga, Ashe, and Avery Counties.
SD Outreach, which has been a model of participatory sustainable development for the region, has helped communities draw up plans for watershed and farmland protection and sustainable micro-enterprise development. The Program also assists initiatives in sustainable agriculture, promotes Appalachian traditions and culture, and works closely with the regional Land Trust and Conservation Organizations.
The SD Outreach Office is located in Cove Creek School Building
Outreach Mission
The mission of SD Outreach is to encourage students and faculty to combine theory and practice by facilitating mutually beneficial relationships between the ASU and neighboring communities. We do this by fostering relevant community-informed research, sustainable economic development and environmental education.
 Sustainable Development at ASU fosters working and supportive relationships with the immediate community, as well as regional, national, and international organizations. We have a full-time Sustainable Communities Coordinator who helps move academic theory to SD practice in the High Country area. The coordinator works closely with the Nature Conservancy, local and regional land restoration/conservation groups, and various park services.
SD Outreach seeks to use ASU's expertise to assist local communities to engage their prospects and problems while relating local issues to global trends. The program facilitates this through a variety of methods including community development and environmental awareness, supporting and organizing public events, initiating workshops and collaborative enterprises, student service learning / volunteerism / internships, and direct student and faculty community-informed research at primarily the local, but occasionally national and international level.
 Outreach and Elk Knob
SD Outreach at ASU focuses on building and sustaining positive relationships between communities and their environments and constructing lasting bonds between people and their places, locally, regionally, and internationally.
Projects like the conservation of the Elk Knob State Park (natural area) and the surrounding area are powerful ways the SD program can serve the interests of the High Country and North Carolinians generally.
Elk Knob and the surrounding northern peaks are special places, environmentally and culturally. This area is home to rare southern red spruce stand, headwaters of the North Fork , one of the highest peaks in Watauga Co and NC. Additionally, there are a number of communities in the surrounding landscape that remain largely unchanged, where residents have worked and lived in the area for generations. These North Fork and "northern peaks" communities are of special interest to Appalachian Studies at ASU.
 Outreach and The Parkway School Research and Educational Greenhouse
In 2002, a research and educational greenhouse was constructed on the premises of Parkway Elementary School. SD helped provide some the funds for construction. Dr. Terry Carroll, the SD faculty member who designed and initiated the project, has designed a unique absorption / collection configuration for the structure and the performance data has been very promising. The greenhouse has been a successful and important project to connect the University with the immediate community and local educators.
Dr. Carroll is currently developing additional experiments concerning passive and active solar performance at the SD Farm.
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