Catawba College
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Catawba College endeavors to use its campus infrastructure as a living-learning laboratory in a variety of applications. Among other things, we offer a course on energy technology that uses the campus photovoltaic and solar thermal installations as teaching examples while also helping students understand how our campus benefits from generating energy on site.

As an assignment for ENV 1406, Environmental Education and Communication, students presented several sustainability-related campus improvements to their peers at the student-organized Sustainability Fair. In 2022, Students presented and engaged peers on several topics, including the impact of shorter showers on overall campus water usage, pathways to improve on-campus recycling, the reduced carbon footprint of meatless meals in the dining hall, electricity and water savings from washing clothes with cold water, best practices in litter reduction, strategies to reduce campus food waste, energy conservation techniques, arguments for divesting the College's endowment from fossil fuels, among other topics. These projects increased student awareness of potential sustainability-related campus improvements for a broad range of the College's operations.

The College routinely hosts school groups and groups from local youth organizations (e.g., scouts) in the Fred Stanback Jr. Ecological Preserve to learn about native plants and animals, and how the Preserve has been restored and is maintained as a certified North Carolina Heritage area. These visits cover topics like how beaver defeat devices can be used to limit flooding while also allowing beavers to live in the Preserve.

Students in a number of courses and internships contribute to advancing sustainability and understanding the concept of sustainability throughout the Salisbury and Rowan County communities. The Internship in Environment & Sustainability course requires students in Environment & Sustainability to complete a Summer internship related to the discipline, then spend the subsequent semester reflecting on the experience. Recent students in this course have interned with Horizons Unlimited, which is a local science center that provides hands-on interactive experiences with school-aged children in a facility that abuts the College's Fred Stanback Jr. Ecological Preserve. The activities at Horizons Unlimited use the Preserve and involve explanations of the restoration of wetlands and other wildlife habitat that have occurred on that portion of our campus.
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For ENV 3300, Intermediate Geographic Information Systems, students applied geographic information systems skills to create local air quality maps. Students identified areas of potential environmental justice concern in the local community and discussed potential factors influencing air quality. Skills training for this program occurs on campus.

Students in ENV 1406 created and presented upon a number of building-related sustainability projects for Catawba's campus. The first set of presentations included developing a building energy monitoring system. Students discussed the pronounced benefits of being able to quantify and monitor consumption levels. Especially when combined with projects like Energy Star appliance replacements and LED light retrofits, improving monitoring systems helps campus staff evaluate savings potential, highlight abnormal use patterns, and highlight areas on campus where conservation programs may have a high impact.

In ENV 1406, "Environmental Education and Communication," students learned about the various sustainability features of the Center for the Environment building, including repurposed steel, repurposed wood from the construction site and other areas of campus, highly efficient aerogel insulation, and more. Furthermore, students were taught and mobilized to give tours of the Center building on their own, helping to further educate other members of campus and the wider community on building design and sustainability.

As was noted in the first item above, our energy technology course used our photovoltaic and solar thermal facilities for teaching purposes. In addition, one student, as part of an independent research project with Dr. ChaMarra Saner, researched the viability of biomass and hydropower as alternative energy sources for the College. The research included a quantitative overview of the capabilities of each technology, data collection from local and on-site hydrologic resources, and a comparative analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of each type of energy production in relation to the College's current electricity mix. Comparative elements spanned hourly production cost, maintenance costs, energy intensity, emissions reduction potential, and potential externalities. A poster from this project is displayed on the third floor of the Shuford Science Building and was featured at the 2022 Catawba Research and Creativity Showcase.

Students, as part of the ENV 1406 Sustainability Fair, presented on the potential for meatless meals for the student body. The presentation utilized potential substitutes for meat, described relative carbon intensities of meat-rich and meatless meals, and discussed the feasibility of various meat substitutes considering student taste preferences.

Students in the Environmental Stewards program have worked with staff in the Center for the Environment to conduct Food Waste Audits in the College's Dining Hall. During several lunches, the Stewards collected, sorted, and weighed everyone's wasted food, while simultaneously engaging members of campus on issues of food waste and consumption.

The College is proud of the living-learning laboratory connection that labwork, coursework, and public engagement share with the Fred Stanback, Jr. Ecological Preserve. Numerous courses, local educational organizations, and student research projects are conducted in the Preserve. Projects range from capturing and banding of birds, wildlife inventories and observations, insect studies, and field and skills labs courses that develop a research project in the preserve.

In Bio 1503, the class sustainably harvests maple sap from trees on campus and produces maple syrup as a way of learning about sap and the interconnectivity of the ecosystem through insects and sapsuckers. The class also examines the sugaring industry and discusses the carbon impact of boiling 30-40 gallons of water to make one gallon of maple syrup.

One student, as part of an independent research project with Dr. Jay Bolin, researched the decline of green ash swamp forest in the Fred Stanback, Jr. Ecological Preserve due to the invasive Emerald Ash Borer. The research project established six 200-square-meter plots within the Preserve by using a nested plot design to measure changes in the canopy, saplings, and herbaceous vegetation. This project worked to showcase the need for conservation efforts and mitigation of a dangerous invasive species within the Campus' Ecological Preserve. This research was featured at the 2022 Catawba Research and Creativity Showcase.

During Fall Semester of 2022, one of the College's Master of Science in Sports Performance candidates conducted a review of transportation of the College's athletes to away games to determine how to lower the carbon impact of those trips. The student came up with two recommendations to reduce the amount of fuel used in trips to other colleges.

The first recommendation was to reverse the policy of using separate buses for men's and women's teams that are traveling to play at the same opponent on the same day. This policy was implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic to increase space between students and attempt to minimize infection risk. Using one bus instead of two will halve the carbon emissions associated with each trip.

The second recommendation was to work with the College's athletic conference to change game scheduling to more sports that play on Wednesdays and Saturdays to a Thursday and Saturday schedule and pair away games in a similar geography in the same week. This change aims to allow teams to stay on the road to play opponents in the same region rather than taking long out-and-back trips twice in one week. For example, games against colleges in southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee would be played the same week. Such an arrangement could eliminate hundreds of bus miles while also allowing student-athletes an opportunity for less time on the road.

As was noted under Buildings above, a course on GIS created a map of campus that showed where waste was most concentrated, which was helpful for the Facilities Department to understand the flows of waste on campus. Additionally, in ENV 1406, students researched and presented on various methods of composting and reducing litter on campus.

Students in the Environmental Stewards program have organized and executed Zero Waste Gamedays for the College's home football games in the 2023 season. The students targeted a waste reduction goal, sorted, weighed, and recorded data to create a path towards the reduction goal in future seasons.

Students in the Master of Science in Sports Performance graduate program are required to draft a Catawba College Athletics Climate Action Plan in Sport and Sustainability. The Athletics Climate Action Plan is a 25-page document that begins with a descriptive element about the current state of sustainability within Catawba's athletics operations. Students are instructed to critically reflect on the current state of affairs. Reports then are instructed to outline the best use of related campus environmental and sustainability committees, administrative actions that could advance sustainability, plans for Earth Day and Green Sports Day, and argue for the implementation and identification of best practices in sustainable design and management of the College's athletics facilities. Plans are expected to include a detailed marketing strategy and cost-benefit analysis.

In April 2022, the Award-Winning Equity, Diversity, Justice and Inclusion (EDJI) Task Force presented "Intersections of EDJI-cation," a mini-conference showcasing exciting and creative leadership opportunities within the spaces where Equity, Diversity, Justice, and Inclusion meet on campus. In a panel discussion, five students showcased the intellectual enrichment and perspectives gained from courses that have challenged the conventions of higher education through engaging, intersectional and transdisciplinary analysis.

Students in ENV 2405, "Socio-Ecological Systems Thinking", take in a learning excursion to the Catawba First Nation Reservation to participate in and learn about the connection between the College and the Nation. Students serving as preserve assistants have furthered this connection into utilizing and connecting with wildlife ecologists from the Nation to help maintain the Fred Stanback, Jr. Ecological Preserve with indigenous techniques for rewilding and resource management. Such projects include native plant seed flourishing projects and management of targeted endemic species, such as giant river cane.

In NURS 4402, a Wellness Fair is hosted that provides screenings and education to empower students to be proactive and confident in caring for themselves and others. Students also conduct a Community Windshield Survey where the students are required to assess local air and water quality, recent community-wide disasters, and to record other symbolic indicators of the local physical environment, which includes Catawba College's campus. Students evaluate the adequacy of local health care and social services, looking for food deserts, spacing between social service centers, and wellness shelters. Students also evaluate the transportation methods of individuals living in their select local community.

In 2021, the Center for the Environment hosted a panel on addressing Eco-Anxiety with Heather White, the author of One Green Thing. Catawba students served as panelists for the educational sustainability and wellness event and were able to use their on-campus experiences to shape their input. Student listeners and participants learned and contributed to a community understanding of how to deal with the sometimes overwhelming reality of climate change. The panel was virtually recorded and is still accessible at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rd6KkaRIaU