California Polytechnic State University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

In the Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration (RPTA) 210, Experience Design Course, Professor Pei Zhang asks campus community partners to work with students in designing an experience for the campus community to participate. In Winter quarter 2023, students will work with the Facilities Energy, Utilities, and Sustainability team to design a film screening about water and energy conservation for Earth Week festivities.

Associated Professor: Tryg Lundquist
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
WESTT conducts research, education, and planning projects related to water and energy, particularly wastewater recycling and biofuels. We have collaborated with Facilities and Agriculture Operations on wastewater treatment and biogas energy topics. We host 50 students per quarter participating in hands-on research.

Over a three-course sequence, all second year architecture students engage directly with study of the campus, both for sustainability related and non-sustainability related inquiries. In fall quarter, ARCH 241, when studying daylighting, students use light meters to measure illuminance in the design studios and produce graphics displaying light levels are various locations in the space. They are also asked to related these values to how well they can see, and how productive they feel. In winter quarter, students visit various locations on site to study stormwater management and understand the network of creeks, ecologically sensitive areas, and how pavement impacts the watershed. For the midterm exam essay, students wrote a letter to President Armstrong (not sent) making compelling arguments for how the new student dorms along the Brizzolara Creek ought to be designed to protect the ecosystem and provide naturally daylit, passively tempered dorms that set a standard for how architecture can positively contribute to the environment. In spring quarter, we usually repeatedly visit two buildings on campus (not done spring 2020 due to COVID-19) and study them extensively through drawing and models. We evaluate the efficacy of solar shading, possible problems with the construction assembly for heat transfer, and relationship to the site.

Teaching renewable energy in ENVE 480 using Cal Poly Facilities
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
As part of our renewable energy labs in ENVE 480, students organize and lead class field trips to campus facilities, such as the Cal Poly Solar Farm, The Cal Poly Wind Energy station, the Cal Poly dairy waste lagoons, Poly Canyon Village cogeneration facility and an anaerobic digestor we set up at the
Experimental Farm. Students collect data from operation of these facilities and use the data to design scaled-up versions of the systems.

Agroecology Learning Garden
Department: Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences
The Agroecology Learning Garden is located at the Cal Poly Student Experimental Farm. The goal of the garden is to support student and faculty research and teaching related to agroecology and sustainable food systems. The garden is comprised of 27 raised experimental beds, pollinator hedgerows, a storage shed, and an outdoor classroom with seating for 32
students. Current research projects include the ecological and economic evaluation of vegetable intercropping systems and the domestication of Silphium integrifolium and Onobrychis Viciifolia for use in perennial cropping systems. The garden serves as a classroom
and laboratory for Cal Poly courses Agroecology (NR 304), Social Dimensions of Sustainable Food Systems (NR 324) and Human Dimensions in Natural Resources Management (NR 323).

In Landscape Architecture 402: Creating High Performance Landscapes for the Cal Poly Campus, students to work in teams and as individuals to propose a design landscape intervention for the Cal Poly campus that will improve the ecological and social performance of the selected site. Assignments guide students from analysis to design resolution. Outcomes have been entered in the EPA’s Campus Rainworks Challenge, presented to the campus community and showcased at the California Metropolitan Water District’s Spring Green Exposition.

Campus Sustainability Discourse and Waste Management
Department: English
Students use Social Life Cycle Assessment, a research methodology developed by the UN Environment Program, to study the social dimensions of implementing sustainable waste management practices on campus. They write three report genres outlined in the 2009 UNEP "Guidelines for Social
Life Cycle Assessment of Products." Their research and writing leads them to an understanding of sustainability as 1) a discourse, 2) a literacy, and 3) an array of social practices. In addition to building
this understanding, the course teaches students about the campus's "Zero Waste Initiative" and enables them to more effectively contribute to campus waste reduction efforts.

Dr. Shams Tanvir conducts research and teaches in the area of sustainable mobility. His research aims at the development and characterization of transportation technologies that minimize energy consumption and emissions while enhancing mobility efficiency and equity.

At Cal Poly, Dr. Tanvir works with the students of Sustainable Mobility Laboratory (SuMoLab). The two main building blocks of the SuMoLab are high-fidelity system simulation and piloting of emerging technologies. Through an iterative process of technology characterization and enhancements at the small-scale, the goal of SuMoLab is to improve understanding of the technologies to enable large-scale deployments. Building on a background in driver behavior modeling and traffic flow theory, my research program will pave the way for sustainable mobility by ensuring robust integration of technologies to the society. Shams also employs his students in class to support the biannual transportation survey.

Campus Recycling and Waste Container Locational Analysis
Associated Professor: Benjamin Funston-Timms
Department: Social Sciences
Students used Global Positioning Systems and Geographic Information Systems to track usage of waste receptacles for waste and recycling by sampling usage of them and mapping them out with usage to find best locations that are most utilized. Informed facilities about best locations, and those that are underutilized.

Facilities staff worked with faculty partners teaching the capstone Environmental Engineering Senior Design Course ENVE 467. In this course, student teams select a real-world problem, analyze a variety of solutions, perform a schematic design of their chosen solution, then present their analysis and design proposal to campus or community stakeholders. The ENVE students were presented with Cal Poly’s challenges regarding water conservation in buildings, landscape, and farm operations, as well as water supply needs to support campus growth envisioned in the 2035 Master Plan. Students used actual campus data to analyze and propose conservation initiatives and infrastructure projects to improve water use efficiency and inform planning for an on-campus recycled water facility that is a critical element of the Master Plan. Some elements proposed by the students are now part of the campus’ plans for water conservation and total conversion of agricultural irrigation over to the use of recycled water.

As part of the University Honors Program a team of eight students took on a year long project to construct the first campus community garden. The garden, recently constructed was a partnership project between the Honors Program, Campus Health and Wellbeing, and Campus Sustainability staff. The garden will provide the campus community a space to grow vegetables while also allowing the gardeners to donate freshly picked produce to the Cal Poly Food Pantry, supporting food-insecure students. Cal Poly’s community garden supporters anticipate the garden will increase awareness of food security issues, educate the community on the importance of local food, and build networks of people interested in these topics. This project resulted in students better understanding the connections of of social, environmental, and economic sustainability through the lens of food insecurity.

The Department of Kinesiology, in collaboration with Campus Health & Wellbeing offers free fitness classes to staff, faculty, and community members. Students from the department teach the courses during the lunch hour to ensure that staff and faculty are available to attend. This provides Kinesiology students the opportunity to put skills learned in the classroom into practice while also providing a wellbeing perk to campus staff and faculty.