California State University, Monterey Bay
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

ENSTU 350: Research Methods in Environmental Studies:
Overview of qualitative and quantitative research methods that environmental professionals use in understanding complex problems, drafting research proposals, and analyzing and presenting rigorous, reliable information. Students will engage in comprehensive explorations of social aspects of environmental topics and will understand the central role that information and research play in enacting appropriate change in natural and built environments with diverse populations.

HOSP 481 - Sustainable Event Management
Involves an in-depth investigation of the unique challenges and opportunities faced by business managers in the event management industry from a sustainable perspective. Relevant business theories are applied to topics, including reducing the carbon footprint of the event, selection of venues, transportation, and vendors.

ENSTU 365: Critical Pedagogy in Environmental Education.
Explores strategies for supporting equitable educational opportunities and access to natural environments for all. Through an examination of both the means (formal, informal education, place-based learning, and participatory practice) and the locations (schools, after-school programs, parks, and public spaces), this course examines approaches to education, enabling policies and frameworks for participation, and methodologies that can facilitate learning among diverse students and community members.

ENSTU 472: Projects in Environmental Education:
Project-based class with a regional environmental education partner. Projects will place students in learning environments where students will focus on sustainability and environmental topics. Projects will vary from year to year.

The collection of water from fog offers a unique opportunity to engage with an environmental feature endemic to the Monterey area (fog). Worldwide, numerous countries capitalize upon the presence of fog to produce potable water in regions that receive little rainfall. In some cases entire communities utilize fog water to meet their basic needs (Henderson et al. and Edwards et al.). Indeed, such deployments exist in Chile, Guatemala, Israel, Yemen, Eritrea, Morocco, Spain, and many other countries throughout the world. A simple mesh mounted properly on a square frame provides a surface for the fog water to coalesce. Once the droplets reach a suitable size, their weight causes them to fall off and collect in a trough below. From a single square meter of vertically-mounted mesh up to several gallons of water have been produced in a single day under foggy conditions with sufficient wind. Actual amounts collected are very location dependent and under foggy conditions are more typically about a liter.

Besides potentially providing a means of capture of usable water, which can serve multiple purposes, this technique provides a much more quantitative in situ means of assessing the presence of fog. The fog collected is a function both of the density of water in the air as well as the wind speed and direction. When the wind directs fog into the mesh, maximal fog water accrues. As wind speed increases, typically so does the amount of fog water collected.

ENSTU 350: Research Methods in Environmental Studies:
Overview of qualitative and quantitative research methods that environmental professionals use in understanding complex problems, drafting research proposals, and analyzing and presenting rigorous, reliable information. Students will engage in comprehensive explorations of social aspects of environmental topics and will understand the central role that information and research play in enacting appropriate change in natural and built environments with diverse populations.

In Fall 2020 Sustainability and Hospitality Management course utilized the Student Center as a case study to integrate sustainability as an event venue.

Students in Dr. Atzori’s Sustainable Event Management course volunteer with local organizations. In September, they volunteered for the Jazz Festival, at Corral De Tierra, and at the Nature Valley First Tee Open at Poppy Hills. An upcoming volunteer opportunity is November’s American Red Cross Farm to Table event.

This course also completes a ‘Sustainability Initiative Project’. Students are analyzing the sustainability practices of the Intercontinental The Clement to determine what the facility is currently doing and what can be done as a facility. The student teams each focus on one aspect of sustainability (i.e. water, waste, energy). The students will produce a written report that will constitute the outcome of their project and the report will be shared with the Intercontinental The Clement of the semester.

Hospitality Capstone students are working with Dametra Fresh and the Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau (MCCVB). One capstone group is doing a study of franchise expansion for the fast casual concept of Dametra Fresh. The other group is studying sustainable tourism marketing initiatives for MCCVB.

Professionally, they’re making contributions to their field through research and furthering their own education with professional certifications. Angel presented his paper “Factors in Tourists’ Food Decision Processes” at the iCHRIE Annual Conference. Roberta’s paper, “The Sustainable Tourist Experience: Antecedents, Components, and Consequences,” was accepted at the October EuroCHRIE Conference.

Dr. González qualified as a Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE®) through the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI). This program is the only professional development opportunity designed for postsecondary hospitality educators. Educators with this certification are able to strengthen students' critical thinking and motivation to learn, share ideas with fellow educators, and receive recognition for their teaching abilities from students, colleagues, and the industry.

Marine Science Service Learning (MSCI 359S)- Students in this course worked to raise awareness about the invasive species Ice Plant that is found around campus and around the Monterey area. They put together an Instagram post and caption to get the word out. They also worked collaboratively with Return of the Natives, a group aimed to restore native habitats in the area.

Mammology course (BIO 364) researches ground squirrel space use and behavior with undergraduate course.

Natural History of CA Wildlife (Bio360) foraging experiments on campus with ground squirrels.

ENSTU 350: Research Methods in Environmental Studies:
Overview of qualitative and quantitative research methods that environmental professionals use in understanding complex problems, drafting research proposals, and analyzing and presenting rigorous, reliable information. Students will engage in comprehensive explorations of social aspects of environmental topics and will understand the central role that information and research play in enacting appropriate change in natural and built environments with diverse populations.

The Return of the Natives project has a 4-acre habitat restoration parcel that the Watershed Institute and the Return to the Native program brings students to collect seeds, grow plants from seed, removes invasive species, and plants seedlings. The soccer team helps to remove ice-plant, which is the most invasive species on campus.

HOSP 481 - Sustainable Event Management
Involves an in-depth investigation of the unique challenges and opportunities faced by business managers in the event management industry from a sustainable perspective. Relevant business theories are applied to topics, including reducing the carbon footprint of the event, selection of venues, transportation, and vendors.

The campus recently launched a Sustainable City Year Program which matches a local municipality's project needs with classes across the university's many academic disciplines. Program allows students to apply academic knowledge in real-world contexts, and has regular support from Campus Planning & Development staff. Students have so far produced well-researched, feasible recommendations for improvements to the campus transportation network and that of our City Year partner.
CSUMB received a $15,000 grant funding to do a living lab project with respect to transportation. The advantage of this project and the two courses that were modified to accommodate is that they are now offered on alternating semesters each academic year.
One course is entitled Sustainability Systems (ENSTU 375) and is taught every fall semester.
A student intern is employed by the Campus Planning and Development to focus on alternative transportation. This is funded by the contracts with Monterey/Salinas Transit.

MSCI 359S- Marine Science Service Learning
Students in this course worked to make composting more accessible in East Campus at CSUMB to help us reach our 90% waste diversion goals. In an effort to understand the needs of the community, these students facilitated and created a survey to assess some important information that could help in their mission to increase composting bins in East Campus. As an incentive to fill out the survey, participants were entered to win a countertop compost bin and five winners were chosen. In total, there was 105 responses and they found that the majority of residents who answered are in favor of composting and would be more likely to compost if there was a bin available in their court. This information will now be used as evidence to support increasing compost bin accessibility in East Campus.

BIO 379S- Biology Service Learning
Students in this course worked to spread awareness on Starbucks' new update about allowing customers to once again bring their reusable cups after the pandemic had prohibited this practice. They worked on this project in order to reduce the amount of disposable plastic being used since they found that the majority of students were still under the impression that Starbucks was still not accepting reusable cups. To accomplish this, they created flyers and social media content in an engaging and easy to understand way for students with information on how to properly bring your reusable cup. This effort led to the activation of the Starbucks reusable cup discount at CSUMB. Now, customers who bring in their clean, reusable cup to use for a drink purchase can get .10 off.

HOSP 481 - Sustainable Event Management
Involves an in-depth investigation of the unique challenges and opportunities faced by business managers in the event management industry from a sustainable perspective. Relevant business theories are applied to topics, including reducing the carbon footprint of the event, selection of venues, transportation, and vendors.

ENSTU 376 Fog collection for oak tree watering on campus.

ENSTU 497- Independent Capstone in Environmental Studies
Spring 2021- Living laboratories on university campuses: A botanical garden conceptual plan for California State University Monterey Bay
This project attempts to address the campus need for more green spaces and uses previous stakeholder research principles of landscape design and sustainability science to create a conceptual design in the planting plan. This project aims to advance sustainability with a plan considerate of transdisciplinary learning on campus where students and faculty from multiple colleges can be involved in the creation of this garden. Using previous research as a foundation, a conceptual plan and planting plan was created for the botanical garden. Planting plan examples were provided as a means to advance this project. This has the potential to transform campus culture creating connections to place, sustainability, and improving campus wellness. Additionally it fulfills the CSUMB master plan goals.

Undergraduate researchers in the course RSCH 294 working on a project that looks at diversity and affordability in terms of how well does representation in mentored undergraduate research and course-based undergraduate research reflect the diversity of the larger student population. We are also specifically looking at working, low-income and care-taker students to see if offering research opportunities in class or funded out-of-class opportunities makes participating more feasible/affordable.

Work Place Walk-Off Challenge was held in 2019. Supported by Kinesiology course, this challenge was a campus-wide opportunity to have staff track steps and work towards increasing physical exercise. Student measured impacts and led info sessions for participants.