Connecticut College
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

FYS1083: Greening the Campus - as part of this course, students planned and held a tabling event to promote plant-based options at the dining hall. Students in the class designed posters and social media posts in advance of the event and then manned the table throughout the lunch period, learning strategies for engaging with other students through a tabling event.

PHE 111: Sustainability in Sports - this course has staffed a table at the College's annual Earth Day event for the last three years. The table highlights activities and actions that our student athletes can take to reduce their impact campus energy, waste, etc.

Every year the College cancels all class for a day and hosts the All-College Symposium to highlight student research by seniors in our Pathways and Academic Centers. Many of these presentations focus on sustainability related individual studies and honor theses, and other students are expected to attend for classes they are currently enrolled in. A subset of these projects specifically focused on campus-focused projects related to sustainability as documented in some of the living laboratory impact areas below. The entire All-College Symposium operates as a very effect way to engage the entire campus on multiple themes, including sustainability.

In 2021-2022, a Senior Integrative Project for the Social Justice and Sustainability pathway was titled “Heavy Metals, Soil Fungi, and Crop Safety in Urban Community Farms.” The project focused on soil testing and educational opportunities in the New London community with support from the campus Sprout Garden.

In 2023-2024, a senior in the Food Pathway focused their Senior Integrative Project, “Obligations in the Farmers Market: Producers Place in Hunger Relief,” on a collaboration between the campus Sprout Garden and a local non-profit Fresh New London to promote community supported agriculture and community implemented farmers markets. The City of New London is a recognized food desert with regard to fresh, healthy produce.

As part of the ES 290: Goodwin-Niering Certificate Seminar students work with a local environmental organization. In 2022 and years prior, this organization was the Avalonia Land Conservancy. Every year some groups help the organization with public outreach by either organizing a public event or more often working on social media outreach. In 2023 and in 2024, ES 290 students worked with the Town of Groton and our arboretum to create an accessible and informative website on the importance of native plant collections. The group participated in the inaugural Groton Earth Day Expo.
https://www.groton-ct.gov/government/boards_and_commissions/conservation/projects.php

A student in the Goodwin-Niering Center for the environment completed their 2023 Senior Integrative Project, “Examining Collection Biases in the Connecticut College Herbarium,” by examining the Connecticut College Herbarium collection. The student looked for evidence of bias in contributions of this historic collection. The data is particularly useful for understanding how climate change may have impacted plant communities on campus over the decades the plant collection has existed.

A second student in the Goodwin-Niering Center for the environment completed their 2023 Senior Integrative Project, “Effects of the Decline of Eastern Hemlocks on Avian and Plant Communities,” looking at how changes in plant communities have impacted bird populations on campus from 1980 to 2022. Once again, climate change is one major driver of both plant community and avian species change.

A group of students in the ES 290 course for the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment worked in our arboretum and local land preserves to develop a habitat and sampling plan for amphibians in vernal wetlands. The data will help track impacts of climate change on these sensitive populations.

PHE 111: Sustainability and Sports conducts multiple campus field trips to look at building infrastructure. These trips include visits to the main campus steam generation plant, visits to the ice rink chilling equipment, and visits to many of the mechanical rooms in the Athletic Center to see heating, cooling, electrical and other mechanical systems.

SUS 293: Application in Sustainability - students developed a proposal to increase the number of green roofs on campus buildings. Students researched different designs of green roofs and began to identify suitable buildings on campus where green roofs could be installed. The project resulted in one of the Office of Sustainability SustainabiliTeams continuing to work with the Environmental Model Committee, a group of faculty, staff, administrators and students that meet monthly to discuss campus policies and actions. The SustainabiliTeam is working to develop language related to both green roofs and rooftop solar installations that could be added to our existing green building policy.

ES 397 - Environmental Project: Planning and ES 398 - Environmental Project: Implementation are courses developed to help design and implement an on-campus solar installation. The course is designed to allow students to participate in the project for multiple years. One solar installation has already been completed on our facilities building and a group of students has been working in the 2023-2024 year to finalize the design for and install a ground-mounted solar array for our Athletic Facility.

A Senior Integrative Project for the Goodwin-Niering Center in 2021-2022, titled “Realizing Net-Zero Design: Connecticut College Responds to the Climate Crisis” used the Connecticut College campus as a case study to assess the feasibility of renewable energy projects, and how they are incorporated in the built environment. The student investigated the net zero plans of similar schools, examine the practical and social constraints such plans must overcome, and design a plan for the college including a strategy for adoption of the plan by the college stakeholders.

Our community garden, Sprout, is used for multiple Botany classes: BOT 230 Ecological Agriculture - used for experimental labs mostly on soil fertility and management; BOT 290 Community Agriculture - used for all aspects of hands-on learning and as a platform for learning about local food systems, sustainability, and food justice; and BOT 493M Sustainable Agriculture - used for hands-on learning about campus food production, waste streams, and pest management. The colleges Food Pathway and the associated course FDP 201: Thematic Inquiry, utilize the college community garden, the Sprout Garden, for instructional purposes. One group of students in SUS 293: Applications of Sustainability worked with Dining Services to investigate the possibility of utilizing more locally grown produce in the dining halls. The project proposal resulted in the creation of an Office of Sustainability SustainabiliTeam that worked with Dining Services to create a list of local vendors.

BOT 330 Applied Mycology utilizes the College Arboretum for fungal ecology projects, mushroom collection, and shiitake log cultivation project.

A student in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed a Senior Integrative Project titled “Challenges to Opening Student-Run Businesses and Promoting Health-Conscious Food Purchases” in 2022-2023, which investigated the challenges to opening a student-run business and promoting health-conscious food purchases on campus. A second student in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed their 2022-2023 Senior Integrative Project, “Sustainable Eating on Campus.” The study focused on increase access to sustainable and local food options to students on campus. A third student in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed a Senior Integrative Project titled “Perennial” in 2023-2024, which included work with local farms to develop meal delivery services to improve access to healthy local foods on campus.

A student in the Food pathway completed a Senior Integrative Project titled, “The Impacts of Food Security Initiatives in New London.” The student worked through the Connecticut College’s Summer Civic Leadership program to explore the impact of a National Recreation and Park Association grant on New London's ability to build and expand community knowledge to reduce food insecurity. The project centered on FRESH New London community garden and the New London Dream Market.

ANT 201: History of Anthropological Theory - students completed a comprehensive survey of the grounds in the area of a proposed ground-mount solar array to look for significant archaeological artifacts. The class project found some evidence of Colonial-era artifacts, but nothing of significance that would render the site unusable for a ground-mount solar array.

Two students completing summer research as part of the College's Summer Student Research Institute worked with a professor to investigate erosion problems along three gullies on campus. The students resurveyed the gullies, which had been originally surveyed in 1999, 2001 and 2008, respectively. The resurvey data highlighted rates of erosion for the three different channels.

SUS 293: Applications in Sustainability – one group in the course worked with Dining Services on a project to help transition the campus from plastic bottle to aluminum can usage to the greatest degree possible because of the higher recycling rates post-campus for aluminum in relation to plastic. The project resulted in one of the Office of Sustainability SustainabiliTeams continuing to work with Dining Services and Catering to transition as many purchased drink products from plastic bottles to aluminum cans.

In 2022-2023, a senior in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed a Senior Integrative Project titled “Smart Bike Sharing System” to develop a website and mobile application for students, staff and faculty that could be used with a smart docking station for a bike sharing system on campus.

SUS 293: Applications in Sustainability – one group in the course worked with Student Life to propose a composting program for the outlying student apartment-style houses. The project resulted in a currently active Office of Sustainability SustainabiliTeam which is continuing to work with Student Life to develop a composting pilot program for these locations.

A student in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed a Senior Integrative Project titled “Reducing Food Waste In The New London Community” in 2021-2022, which included work with our main campus dining hall to increase food donation to the New London Community to reduce food insecurity. Two students in the Entrepreneurship pathway in 2022-2023 completed related Senior Integrative Projects. One was titled, “How Can We Increase Sustainability within the City of New London?” the other was called, “Cups for Change.” Both students looked at how colleges, bars and restaurants in the city of New London could reduce the waste created by single-use plastic cups.

A Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment student scholar completed a Senior Integrative Project titled, “Reducing Plastic Waste. Period.” The project and campus outreach focused on reducing plastic usage in feminine waste by empowering young women.

A student in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed their 2023-2024 Senior Integrative Project, “Camel Furniture”, on a Facebook group to help increase the reuse of old furniture. Students, especially graduating seniors, would sell their used furniture to other students on campus to provide good quality furniture at a low cost, with waste reduction benefits.

ES/GEO 210: Hydrology – students in these courses use a stormwater detention located in the northern part of campus to study the problem of runoff with increases in impervious area. The detention basin was redesigned as part of a student individual study to better filter out sediment and dissolved pollutants, which provides a great example to students how their actions can improve campus sustainability.

A 2023-2024 Senior Integrative Project for the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment, titled “Impacts of Ground-Mounted Solar Arrays: Connecticut College as a Case Study,” is currently underway to investigate the hydrology of a portion of campus impacted by runoff from impervious areas that the college would like to utilize for a 730 kW ground-mount solar array. The student is working to provide information that can be used by an outside consultant to best position the array on the site.

A student in the Entrepreneurship pathway completed their 2022-2023 Senior Integrative Project, “Shared Experience: Off Campus Living” related to planning for campus housing. In particular the student investigated how off-campus living affects the shared experience of college students, and how college housing can be more sustainable.

In 2022-2023, a student in the Social Justice and Sustainability pathway completed a Senior Integrative project titled, “The Importance of Making Sports More Sustainable.” The project involved literature research and work with Connecticut College athletic teams to investigate the role of sports in relation to climate change, but also specifically looked at inequities created economically and socially. The project recommended more restrictive travel for sports teams and more television air-time for women's sports to leverage sports as an influencer of change with regard to sports and global sustainability.

A second student in the 2022-2023 Social Justice and Sustainability pathway completed a Senior Integrative project titled, “How Industrialization and Urban-Renewal has Diminished Indigenous Culture.” This student looked specifically at a local tribe and pollution problems that impacted both the sense of living on oppressed land and looking for opportunities to improve environmental quality of the region that includes the campus.

A group of students in the ES 290 course for the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment used College templates to develop a Native American land acknowledgement and create some environmental justice statements for the City of New London. A different group in the ES 290 class translated environmental blogs for a partnering land conservation group into French and Mandarin, to increases access of these resources to the local community.

The course PHE 111: Sports and Sustainability did a Corporate Social Responsibility module where students in groups chose a commercial entity to dissect from the ground up - where the product is made, by whom is it made - living wage and working conditions, interviewed their peers about their buying and spending habit, what is important to them as a consumer, challenged the products made to a test of usage and strength, plus had several animated conversations about consumerism habits amongst their age group.

A senior in the Creativity pathway completed their Senior Integrative Pathway in 2021-2022 titled Art and the Climate Crisis. The project included student-generated art created and displayed on campus that aimed to help people inspire people to combat the climate crisis and deal with processing mental illness related to climate anxiety.

A group of students in the ES 290 class for the Goodwin-Center for the Environment setup an informational booth at the Groton Public Library during the Groton Earth Day Expo with the sign, Climate Anxiety Counseling. The goal of the project was to get the local community talking about climate fears and concerns. https://www.groton-ct.gov/government/boards_and_commissions/conservation/projects.php

Projects and course descriptions were collected from departments and centers. Some projects were also pulled from those presented at the All-College Symposium in 2022 and 2023: https://www.conncoll.edu/connections/all-college-symposium/

Information about research in the Arboretum can be found here: https://www.conncoll.edu/the-arboretum/