Bard College
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Dr. Eli Dueker uses the Bard Field Station to study the connections between air quality and water quality through coastal aerosols. Eli conducts studies with students of the air quality near the Sawkill in his course on Air.

Katrina Light has installed an Urban Cultivator in the Bertelsmann Campus center which provides micro greens to the neighboring Down-The-Road Cafe. Students volunteer to harvest these greens and learn about how our facilities can be used to create a more sustainable food system.

Daniel Smith conducts presentations to teach faculty and students about Reem-Kayden Center for Science and Computation's geothermal energy system. He also provides tours of the system. Paul Cadden-Zimansky teaches a Global Energy course, where student projects included studies of how much electricity, water, heating energy, and transportation energy Bard uses each year. Some of the labs in this class also studied Bard's energy generation from its solar panels next to the soccer field.

BardEATS: Guiding Bard's sustainable food initiatives is Bard EATS (Eating Awareness Transforms Society), a collaborative partnership among Bard students, dining services, faculty, and staff committed to increasing food purchasing transparency, reducing waste, decreasing the college's carbon footprint, promoting food access, and supporting local farms and sustainable products. Kline Dish Audit: A student-sourced project proposal, vetted and approved by a council of staff, faculty, and students was designed and conducted to set a groundwork for studies and action to change student interaction with waste in Bard's dining facilities. Student representatives intercepted dishware at a critical point of contamination (the Kline Commons Dishroom) to manage loss of dishware and proper sorting of food waste and garbage. Teaching Kitchen: In the Teaching Kitchen, students will learn basic slow food cooking, baking and fermentation techniques. Through hands-on learning we will explore seasonality, preservation, culture and address food waste. Bard Food Initiative: this program strives to develop local food culture through outreach programs and food service reform. Bard College Farm: The Bard Farm is a 1.25 acre sustainable farm that organically grows fruits and vegetables to sell to Chartwells, the campus dining service. Located on Bard’s campus, worked by students, and visited by several classes.

Bard was awarded funding from the NYSEFC to implement a Regional Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project at Olin parking lot. The project used permeable asphalt, porous paver walkways, a constructed wetland, bioretention and bioswales. Bard Arboretum: Monthly arboretum walks with the Director. Student interns (annual program) learn about tree inventories under guidance of horticulture supervisor. Bard College Farm: The Bard Farm is a 1.25 acre sustainable farm that organically grows fruits and vegetables to sell to Chartwells, the campus dining service. Located on Bard’s campus, worked by students, and visited by several classes. Community Garden: Bard students and faculty work together to create a permaculture style organic garden on campus. Class projects with Environmental and Urban Studies program.

Real Food Challenge/Bard EATS (Eating Awareness Transforms Society/Bard Food Initiative: students investigate alternative product sourcing that fulfills RFC principles which attempt to guide schools in purchasing food that is equitably and sustainably produced.

Daniel Smith has conducted Transportation/Commuter Behavior Surveys to determine the commuting distances, number of trips, and modes of transport used by survey takers as a part of the Greenhouse Gas Audit.

Elias Dueker teaches a "waste" course which focuses on the microbiological process concerned in waste. Students test water from Bard's sewage outflow pipe and examine the microbiological make up in the Saw Kill. Bard's porous parking lot provides a place for students to study bioswales, which filter pollutants in storm water. Lab's are conducted on studying waste water that runs through the Olin parking lot. The free use store provides students a place to donate their old clothes and miscellaneous items. Any student can enter the free use store and take what they want.

Eli Dueker conducts testing of the water quality for the Saw kill Community Watershed. Bard is located at the bottom of the Saw kill, which puts us at a unique location that allows us to determine the final quality of the water before it flows into the Hudson. EUS Eels Project: The Environmental and Urban Studies (EUS) program and Biology sponsor a 10+ year research project on the American eel, in coordination with the New York State DEC and the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (HRNERR). Students, staff, faculty, and community members monitor juvenile American eel populations with a net in the South Tivoli Bay on Bard's campus, with use of the Bard Field Station in order to assess and improve this indicator species' ecological conditions. Students have launched eel-related careers from this project, contribute annually to region-wide understanding of Hudson River ecology, and bonded with each other, staff, faculty, and community members.

“Maintaining Red Hook’s Traditional Image” (Leo Stevens-Lubin) “Connecting the Dots: Expanding Transportation and Curb Appeal in Upper Red Hook” (Gwendolyn Knapp) Student Government: There is a student position on the Bard Sustainability Council through Student Government. Student Government also supports/funds several sustainability-related clubs who often have faculty/staff advisers. (The Environmental Collective, the Bike Coop, the Outdoors Club, etc.).

The Difference and Media Project is an interdisciplinary, extra-departmental space for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. Inspired by the interdisciplinary, problem-focused nature of the MIT Media Lab, which MIT describes as an “atelier” environment, the Difference and Media Project creates a multi-media laboratory space for “difference.” Difference, broadly speaking, includes race, sexuality, religion, national origin, class, or other ability, but is not restricted to those categories. Difference, of course, is not necessarily an idea that can be captured within these categories, which can only be preliminary and provisional. Media includes written texts, live performance, plays, digital artworks, conversation, art installations, or site-specific interactions with the landscape. The laboratory format allows for rigorous play, spontaneous interactions, and creative analysis.

The Bard Center for Civic Engagement runs multiple projects which help students become engaged locally. These programs include, among others: Dream to Achieve: DTA works with at-risk and under-resourced students in local communities to build academic achievement and success. We provide students with engaging and educational experiences and programs. Elections at Bard: Elections at Bard facilitates voter registration for local students, provides information, hosts forums in which candidates and students can meet, and protects the rights of students to vote. Native Peoples on Bard's Lands: In winter 2013-14 eight Rhinebeck middle school students formed an Anthropology Club to work with Bardians in Prof Christopher Lindner’s class on field and lab methods on Ancient Americans. Red Hook Together: Red Hook Together works with Bard College, the Red Hook Chamber of Commerce, the school district, and the towns and villages of Red Hook and Tivoli who share a vision to enhance the lives of those who live, work, and study in Red Hook.

Amii LeGendre coordinator of the wellness program at Bard works in conjunction with Tom O'Dowd, the administrator of the Environmental and Urban Studies program to host nature meditative walks and canoe rides all with the goal of increasing knowledge of Bard's ecosystem while using nature as a way to promote wellness.

More info on Eels program: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/49580.html