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

The CSUN Sustainability team works to integrate sustainability into all aspects of the university from operations to outreach, education, and research while providing hands-on learning opportunities for students. The Institute's goal is to offer an array of hands-on learning related to sustainability. These include classes engaged in gardening, composting, pollinator friendly landscape, tree planting, zero waste, and transportation.

The Sustainability minor capstone course (SUST 400) engages students in community service projects related to sustainability. These include outreach to local businesses on energy and water conservation using rebates from the utility company, improving their sustainability practices, and increasing their outreach to the community to promote sustainability/equity-related programs and services.

In Spring 2024, students in the MA in Sustainability program hosted Climate Justice Education Week as part of the national campaign. These students hosted a sustainability themed farmer's market event, a nutrition workshop, campus tour, volunteer day, and more. 

https://www.csun.edu/sustainability/events/worldwide-climate-justice-education-week 

The Institute for Sustainability partners with Mechanical Engineering students to maintain eight stationary "solar trees" built by engineering students and installed across campus. These trees are stand-alone units with solar panels on top that provide free charging mobile devices and seating for the campus community. Every semester, students in a mechanical engineering class, inspect them and provide necessary maintenance and repairs. 

The University operates a "freight farm" a vertical hydroponic shipping container farm incorporated into the campus food system via the Food Pantry. This has increased the amount of locally grown food provided to students. Students gain hands-on experience with growing food, operating a business, and food logistics, budgeting is included in the student-driven maintenance of the farm.

The Institute for Sustainability hosts a 1/2 acre garden that acts as a living lab engaging faculty, students, and the greater community. The Institute for Sustainability also manages a 1/4-acre "agroforestry site" in the existing campus citrus orchard that will become a research/engagement space for students, staff, faculty, and the larger public.

The Marilyn Magaram Center for Food, Nutrition, and Dietetics has student interns and paid student employees who make a variety of sustainable food products including Matador Marmalade from oranges grown on campus, tea from herbs grown on-campus, and spice blends, also from plants grown at CSUN.

https://www.csun.edu/marilyn-magaram-center/products-services

In fall 2023, the CSUN Sustainability team partnered with University 100, an intro to college seminar course, to provide various hands-on learning experiences to freshman students. This collaboration aimed to connect students to the campus and help them develop a strong sense of belonging to the CSUN community. Projects that supported campus grounds included:

Pollinator Workshops: our team members spoke with students about the importance of pollinators and the threats they face, using monarch butterflies as a case study. Students then spent a second class session on-site at the G.A.R.D.E.N. conducting a bio-blitz to document biodiversity on campus via the iNaturalist app.

Garden Tours: three sections came to the G.A.R.D.E.N. for a tour of the vegetable beds, fruit trees, native plants, and composting operations. The groups then returned to the garden for a workday planting carrots and beets in our beds for distribution at the CSUN Food Pantry. Many students returned to the G.A.R.D.E.N. on their own following these sessions to continue helping and getting to know the space.

Urban Forest: two parts of this activity included an educational presentation about the importance of trees in cities and a practical component where students plant trees on campus. The campus Lead Groundworker championed the practical portion of this activity in collaboration with Grounds staff.  The Grounds team sourced trees, made presentations to classes, coordinated tree planning sessions, and worked with Grounds staff and UN 100 students to plant 40 trees on campus.

A CSUN student combined four years of office supply purchasing data into an interactive dashboard. This tool allows viewers to quickly view the dollars spent in different categories for custom timeframes, and look at the recycled content or third-party environmental certifications of purchased products. The dashboard makes it much faster to gain insights regarding purchasing trends, and is an engaging way for viewers to explore purchasing data and learn about sustainability impacts of purchasing habits.

In fall 2023, two University 100 classes worked with the CSUN Sustainability team to learn about the importance of reducing emissions from commuting and the impact on the environment. Students then spent two hours outside of class informing other students about a transportation survey and encouraged them to complete it. This survey data provides valuable information about how students commute to/from campus and potential barriers to why they don't use public transportation. 

A bike repair program for the CSUN community was implemented in 2019, aimed at getting students and staff into sustainable transportation alternatives and educating them on the effects of carbon pollution on campus.

A CSUN student worked with campus sustainability staff to design a brief survey to be distributed to the CSUN community. This survey assesses knowledge, attitudes, awareness, and beliefs surrounding CSUN's zero waste goal and waste sorting practices. Results of this survey will be very useful in crafting future zero waste messaging.

A group of Environmental and Occupational Health students mapped all water bottle refill stations on campus, documented observations on their condition, water taste and quality, and provided a report to the campus with suggested improvements to increase awareness about water refill stations and how this water is generally as good as or better than bottled water.

Students in sustainability classes contributed to CSUN's Road Map to Sustainability Development. Students in the Master's in Sustainability program attended multiple focus group sessions and reviewed specific focus areas of the Road Map which was under development to provide valuable feedback to ensure student opinions were included in the goals and action items set forth over the next 10 years.

Students from various classes that require service learning hours, complete their service at the CSUN Food Pantry. These students gain hands-on experience in providing free food and other resources to food insecure and unhoused students. These students assist with program outreach, distribution and event logistics and day-to-day operations. They even harvest food from the multiple campus gardens to provide farm to Pantry produce. They also assist with the monthly Pop-Up pantry which is a free farmers market where students receive fruits and vegetables, some of which are grown on campus. Many students participate in a living laboratory experience with the HERE Center which is dedicated to improving health equity for individuals in the San Fernando Valley (SFV) and surrounding communities through education, community-academic partnerships, and health disparities research. Much of this research focuses on the intersection of sustainability and health disparities. More info: https://www.csun.edu/here-center/projects

Business students in finance manage a $2 million portfolio for the campus. They carried out a study to investigate the impacts of designating it, or a portion, for environmentally sustainable investments.

CSUN  offers many programs that support wellbeing in the workplace while also providing hands-on learning experiences for students. Kineseology students lead a Commit to be Fit exercise program for employees to workout together after work. 

Students majoring in Nutrition and Dietetics provide services to the campus and broader community while receiving hands-on experience related to wellbeing. Services include Bod Pod analysis, nutrition counseling, recipe analysis, ServSafe certification, and a program for people with diabetes to live a healthy lifestyle. They