Emory University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

The Sustainable Food Fair course plans and executes Emory’s annual Food Fair, educating the Emory community on the multi-faceted challenges and opportunities of sustainable food production, sourcing, consumption, and disposal. Students invite campus and community groups that contribute to the vitality of local food systems and develop activities to connect campus audiences to these visiting groups.

Students in the “Textbook to Table” and “Sustainable Food Systems” worked together to present concepts from their courses at the Sustainable Food Fair. They cooked recipes in the campus teaching kitchen and created interactive activities to engage Fair attendees.

A student’s sustainability capstone was an on-campus performance of four eco-fables, written and performed by the student. They discussed the past, present, and future of climate change.

A student’s master’s thesis focused on patterns of healthcare utilization and climate migration of immigrants in the U.S., particularly in the southeast region, with remains poorly understood. They developed a triage screen to identify refugees and immigrants in an ethically appropriate manner. They piloted the triage screen in the Emergency Department (ED) of an Emory hospital, conducted a mixed quantitative/qualitative follow-up survey and chart review to assess health status, healthcare encounters, and climate migration.  

Students in Dr. Eri Saikawa’s Lab are monitoring air quality on campus, assessing data collected, and translating it be accessible to the public. https://www.saikawalab.com/air-emory-information

Students in the “Climate Change & Society” course learn theories of practice about climate communications and international climate negotations. Students who successfully join Emory’s delegation to the Conference of the Parties must complete this course. In it, they prepare to explore particular topics during the COP and then return to campus to complete a communications project to provide their on-campus peers an opportunity to learn from their experience.

A student’s master’s thesis focused on Bird-Strike Risk Factors and Prevention in Atlanta and included bird strike data collected from on Emory’s campus.

Anthropology 385W Energy, Culture, & Society taught in fall semesters by Dr. Kristin Philips taught concepts through tours of campus co-generation and steam plants on campus.

Emory’s SHINE Semester is a 10-week commitment, and it is required for all first-year students through their Freshman Seminars. Students are paired up with organizations like Emory Food Chain, which runs weekly service trips that distribute excess food from Emory cafeterias to local hospitality houses: mitigating local hunger & food waste.

A student’s sustainability capstone project assessed the resilience and vulnerability of local farmers, some of whom were suppliers of Emory University, during Spring 2021, as the pandemic continued. 

Students in Emory’s Turner Environmental Law Clinic drafted language for an innovative “food purchase agreement” to structure Emory’s partnership with the Working Farms Fund of The Conversation Fund. The MOU the students developed was successfully adopted by Emory and signed by the food service provider directly purchasing locally-grown produce grown on farms secured through the Working Farms Fund. https://law.emory.edu/academics/clinics/faculty-led-clinics/turner-environmental-law-clinic-clients.html

A student’s sustainability capstone focused on the impacts of biking and biking infrastructure in the City of Atlanta. 

A graduate Environmental Health course, Research Methods for Studies of Water and Health, uses the WaterHub at Emory to learn critical skills in measuring water quality exposure assessment and waterborne disease health outcomes that enable students to conduct their own field studies and analyze the resulting data. Issues of microbiological contamination in developing countries and chemical contamination and domestic cases are covered. 

A student’s masters thesis produced mathematical models to predict COVID-19 transmission based upon measurements taken from campus wastewater system dynamics.

As part of the development of the Twin Memorials, "a project that seeks to honor the substantial contributions of the enslaved individuals and their descendants who helped to build, maintain, and grow Emory," numerous faculty and students have produced scholarship describing Emory's past practices as a means of making informed choices to right historical wrongs concerning the conduct towards enslaved Africans and the Indigenous People upon whose land Emory was built. https://twinmemorials.emory.edu 

A student’s honors thesis provides insight into the language encouraged and sometimes enforced in tour guide training manuals, which support othering Oxford students from Emory University.  

A student’s master’s thesis sought first to understand the current state of disability inclusion at the Rollins School of Public Health and then to identify community-centered, evidence-based recommendations for change using a mixed-methods design.

A student’s master’s thesis focuses on an integrated approach to mental health support for international students, including mental health assessments and recommendations to support Emory students.

A student’s master’s thesis focused on patterns of healthcare utilization and climate migration of immigrants in the U.S., particularly in the southeast region, which remains poorly understood. They developed a triage screen to identify refugees and immigrants in an ethically appropriate manner. They piloted the triage screen in the Emergency Department (ED) of an Emory hospital and conducted a mixed quantitative/qualitative follow-up survey and chart review to assess health status, healthcare encounters, and climate migration.  

A student’s master’s thesis evaluates the effectiveness of Emory’s Urban Health Initiative to advance healthy equity through its programs.

In the Applied Investments business school course, students apply a sustainability filter to the stock investments they make for the Emory endowment (> $3 million of actual endowment assets). https://business.emory.edu/full-time-mba/concentration/investment-banking

The course Social Responsibility and Bioethics in Nursing introduces a social responsibility framework as a model of professional nursing practice. Students develop essential skills to provide compassionate, patient-centered nursing care and interpersonal skills to establish effective professional relationships. The experiential learning component occurs at Emory clinical locations.

A student’s master's thesis produced mathematical models to predict COVID-19 transmission based on measurements taken from campus wastewater system dynamics.

A student’s master’s thesis sought first to understand the current state of disability inclusion at the Rollins School of Public Health and then to identify community-centered, evidence-based recommendations for change using a mixed-methods design.

A student’s master’s thesis focused on patterns of healthcare utilization and climate migration of immigrants in the U.S., particularly in the southeast region, which remains poorly understood. They developed a triage screen to identify refugees and immigrants in an ethically appropriate manner. They piloted the triage screen in the Emergency Department (ED) of an Emory hospital, and conducted a mixed quantitative/qualitative follow-up survey and chart review to assess health status, healthcare encounters, and climate migration.  ]