Arizona State University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

As part of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Class with Dr. Nalini chhetri, students completed a greenhouse gas inventory for Barrett, the Honors College, on the ASU Campus in Tempe for the 2012 calendar year. The purpose for the inventory was to provide Barrett administration with insight into how they (students, faculty and staff) are directly contributing to the overall emissions for ASU. The results were compared to other universities, operations and communities and showed that even though they were lower than others, there is still a need to reduce if not eliminate all emissions in the future in order to minimize environmental impact. A graduate student in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning based his research project and paper on the relationship between particulate matter and childhood asthma in an area that included the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus. This research became the basis of a warning system for central Phoenix.

Residence hall students and student floor managers at the ASU Downtown Taylor Place dormitory complex were engaged by behavioral science post-docs in an Energize Phoenix project to understand the impacts of energy feedback devices on energy consumption in dorm rooms. Approximately 230 students from 121 dorm rooms participated in the project. In a graduate class on structural damage, some of the students have used the ASU parking structures and the structural analysis of solar panels on the roof to determine how much structural capacity enhancement is needed. The number of panels that can be structurally placed without added capacity enhancements and the consequent energy generation is a sustainability advantage.

The undergraduate class, “Sustainable Food and Farms” (SOS 327) took on the ambitious project of evaluating ASU’s food sourcing decisions for a series of specific food items: eggs, beef, dairy, seafood, coffee and fresh fruits and vegetables. Their task was to make strategic recommendations to ASU in relation to food purchases, asking questions such as “Should ASU aim to go organic or buy local? Should eggs be cage free or free-range? Should we even be eating seafood and fish at all? What about beef? Is there a way to consume beef sustainably?” The students evaluated the primary sustainability concerns associated with each food item, the sourcing options available to ASU and the tradeoffs associated with each option, and finally made specific recommendations for ASU’s food purchasing. A student design competition was held to convert a quarter acre parcel of land at the ASU Research Park into a sustainable urban farm. The urban farm will be student-run. URL: http://sustainabilityconnect.asu.edu/myConnect/project/187 In the SOS 320 class, students looked into the challenges of incorporating healthy, locally grown foods in ASU’s cafeterias. Students interviewed ASU food services, students, and local farmers to understand both the potentials and challenges in linking locally grown foods with ASU’s dining halls. While this idea has several potentials (e.g., fresh and healthy food choices, supporting local farmers), they also identified several challenges and barriers (e.g., food supply contracts, strict processing standards.

As part of the Energize Phoenix project, graduate engineering and design students were engaged to conduct energy use measurements at an ASU downtown office building and a parking garage in order to measure the effectiveness of energy upgrades performed on the facilities. Additionally, the design student undertook a full energy modeling of the office building and further measurements in order to recommend HVAC ducting improvements and their potential energy savings impacts. Data collected from the Energize Phoenix project was utilized by Supriya Goel and Shaily Rungta for their ATE 599 thesis work.

With the help of the SIRF Tier 1 grants, a student project was initiated to update the campus plant inventory and from this, to update the associated Arboretum Signage. Under the direction of ASU Faculty Associate, Don Thorstenson of the Geography department, and the MAS-GIS program, the 2012 fall classes developed an ArcGIS protocol and database. Spring 2013 Master students have since developed an online map viewer of tree data. This map viewer tool can be used by anyone, any time to access special tree data. All the tree metrics are generated by a free program called I-Tree (developed by the US Forest Service) http://www.itreetools.org/ This information is key to understanding how trees effect ASU’s GHG inventory. In response to crumbling planters with water-needy plants situated at the front of the Art building on campus, the School of Art and Design School partnered to develop appropriate landscape amenities. Students from an upper division ceramics class, taught by Susan Beiner and Landscape Architecture, taught by Joe Ewan designed and created ceramic planters with desert flora appropriate to an actual site surrounding the Art/Design campus “neighborhood’ of Neeb plaza. The large scale planters were installed and planted Fall 2013.

A student working as an intern in the ASU Purchasing Department worked with Dr. James Hershauer to create a new version of the Supplier Sustainability Questionnaire used with suppliers to ASU. He made major revisions to the document and presented it to the AVP of University Business Services and the University Sustainability Operations Officer. This resulted in agreements with vendors that they would not only reduced packaging waste but would take back their boxes, Styrofoam and other used shipping materials.

Two School of Sustainability students performed research to help develop a B99 (99% used vegetable oil made into diesel fuel) fuel tank and dispensing system on the Tempe campus. A number of the Grounds diesel vehicles now run with the B99 as well as a truck from Surplus Sales.

During Spring 2011, School of Sustainability students performed a waste audit of Arizona State University’s Hassayumpa dining facility. During Spring 2014, separate School of Sustainability students will perform a waste audit of the Palo Verde Dining Hall. The results of the audits have been and will be used by our Recycling Department to make process and student engagement improvements. The SOS Solutions Workshop class, taught by Katja Brundiers and Aaron Redman, in collaboration with the Office of University Sustainability Practices and Facilities Management explored the question: what would a sustainable food waste disposal system at ASU look like? Using a problem-based learning approach, the students work in teams to confront the complex problem of food waste disposal. The culmination of this research resulted in ASU’s commitment to achieving zero solid waste across all campus locations by 2015. The university will reduce its landfill waste by 90 percent, averting some waste through reduced consumption and diverting the rest through recycling, composting, and reusing or repurposing. An undergraduate’s honors thesis was titled, “Documenting the Development of ASU’s Green Bin Program.” The undergraduate helped design the composting/green bin system on campus with the Recycling Program group. Her thesis serves as a user manual for establishing such a program at another university or business.

An undergraduate student used SIRF Tier 1 funds to exhibit a working Custom Aeroponics system to the ASU community that highlighted sustainable agriculture, chemical fertilizer reduction and water conservation. In 2011, Custom Aeroponics formally started as a student company with the acceptance into the Edson Student Entrepreneurship Initiative along with $20,000 of start-up capital. Received sponsorship from 2 local companies: Botanicare and Native Seeds. The Environmental Chemistry (CHM 302) students test the drinking and surface water on the ASU West Campus and in nearby community parks. They present their findings to students and community residents and talk about their perception of water quality and the environment. As an experiment to test “community-based social marketing techniques” learned in a Society and Sustainability class, a group of students analyzed both the perceptions and actual water consumption behavior among the residents of ASU’s dormitories. They identified several key strategies to reinforce water conservation education through social marketing techniques, including water consumption monitoring, water rationing drill, and orientation for new residents.

As partial fulfillment of a W. P. Carey College of Business organization’s class, a student performed a study about the organizational structure of Arizona State University’s Tempe campus Farmers Market. The student created a Farmers Market promotional video, as well as provided a list of recommendations. Many of the recommendations have been implemented which has improved market attendance. A student in the Policies, Environments, and Obesity Prevention class (NTR 527) wrote a policy brief as a final class project about increasing the safety of bicycle riding at the ASU Downtown Phoenix Campus to create a more bicycle friendly community in Downtown Phoenix. The policy brief was presented to the Phoenix Mayor for review.

With the help of a SIRF Tier 1 grant for ASU, Simin Levinson initiated the planning, care and harvesting of a small community garden associated with the ASU School of Nutrition & Health Promotion. All aspects of the garden have been incorporated into several classes within the School. Of particular interest is the Nutrition Lab, taught by Dr. Levinson, which involves students harvesting the herbs and vegetables from the garden in the instructional kitchen, preparing food for sale at the Kitchen Café at the Downtown Phoenix campus. Additionally, the garden has inspired the creation of a Nutrition Student Garden Club as well as several cooking classes and associated educational opportunities. The honors thesis of a student in Barrett’s, the Honors College, is focusing on the high accident rate, especially among young people, and the social problem of distracted driving, particularly in light of advancing technologies in the car. Her idea coincides, by chance, with ASU’s driving safety program. Her advocacy project includes a pre-survey of ASU students on texting and distracted driving, a seminar with a speaker on distracted driving, as well as a campus campaign to raise awareness of distracted driving, in particular the dangers of texting while driving.

JoEllen Alberhasky, Program Coordinator of University Sustainability Practices, worked with groups within the WP Carey Market Research class to develop a survey evaluating engagement in sustainability. Each work group developed an independent survey, administered to students and faculty within the University, and summarized the responses to help ASU direct its engagement efforts. The TDM 530/531 class (Sustainable Tourism Destination Planning and Management) class hosted an conference on ASU campus that included a panel discussion about sustainable practices in tourism businesses and sustainable tourism more generally. This also included a small job/internship fair with booths set up by the Sierra Club, the Student Conservation Alliance, the Valley Permaculture Alliance, and others. The conference expanded awareness about sustainability practices among attendees, mostly ASU students but also community members, including sustainable food management and sustainable transportation.

In the class SOS494 Energy Efficiency in Policy and Practice, students analyzed ASU energy monitoring data for five campus buildings and combined it with their own thermal imaging visits to these buildings in order to rank the relative efficiency of the buildings and hypothesize on the main factors driving the energy use intensity of each building.