George Mason University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

The Office of Sustainability hosts daily volunteer opportunities at its hydroponic greenhouse, permaculture garden, and vegetable garden sites. From the summer 2019 semester to the spring 2020 semester, the office has documented nearly 6,000 hours of student service-learning from 2,000 volunteers.

Students in EVPP 336: Human Dimensions of the Environment class were assigned a project to map human-environment interactions at Mason’s Fairfax campus. They chose a human-environment interaction on campus to discuss how it plays a part of the socio-ecological system of campus. At the end of the semester, the class presented their findings to the Office of Sustainability to share their findings and offer suggestions for improvement.

In Spring 2020, Office of Sustainability staff members attended a session of Communications 660: Climate Change and Sustainability Communication and met with graduate students to discuss OoS’ current engagement and outreach with the Mason community while developing ideas, strategies, and tactics to increase the effectiveness of OoS’ engagement/outreach efforts as well as improving the operational effectiveness of OoS.

The Campus Kitchen student organization works with the dining halls to deliver unserved meals to local organizations that serve food insecure members of the community. The organization also tracks wasted food at the dining halls to raise awareness on food waste.

In Fall 2019, the Office of Sustainability provided support to a local (Navy Elementary School) 6th grade Lego FLL Team (Tilted Towers, Team # - 32809) which won 2nd place at the state championships hosted at JMU! The Tilted Towers team articulated a plan to sustainably improve and maintain their recreational field in addition to creating a “Innovative School Facilities” club that will focus on making long-term and sustainably-focused facilities improvements for the Navy Elementary School. This qualified the team for the World Championship.. The OoS reviewed the team’s PowerPoint presentation and participated in a meeting to provide the team feedback. OoS also provided additional feedback via email after the meeting.

The Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere (COLA)Studies works collaboratively with NASA’s Center for Computational Sciences and NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Division as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation to train the “next generation of atmospheric and oceanic modelers” while several members of the COLA research staff are “actively engaged in graduate student advising, teaching courses, and leading training workshops at a number of universities and other organizations.” Students are able to access The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) which is “an interactive desktop tool that is used for easy access, manipulation, and visualization of earth science data.”

During the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 academic year, students from the Mechanical Engineering Senior Design team partnered with Facilities to assess the thermal loss of campus buildings and received funding from the Patriot Green Fund for implementation. The project team devised a sensor package and delivery system, leveraging the assets and capabilities from previous capstone efforts, to assess and map the thermal leaks of various Mason buildings.

Over the summer of 2019, the Office of Sustainability worked with student volunteers to install informational decals in all of the campus dorm rooms to remind residents to turn off lights when they are not in use, keep their thermostats at conservative temperatures, and take shorter showers in order to determine if educational campaigns are effective for changing behaviors and reducing energy and water usage.

Students in the Food Systems course, taught by Dr. Lacharite, analyzed how the produce grown in the Fairfax campus gardens connect to the local food network. They then created a public map that displays the connections between stakeholders and consumers. These students are in the Master's in Nutrition and Food Studies program.

In 2018/2019, the Patriot Green Fund approved a project to explore the resiliency of different types of grass seed in order to make recommendations for turf varieties that require less maintenance and pesticide use. The student worked with the Office of Sustainability’s Gardens and Greenhouse Manager to set up test plots at the Potomac Heights Vegetable garden.

Patriot Green Fund provides funding for student sustainability research and projects that green Mason's campuses. Many of these projects are generated in sustainability classes and use the campus as a living laboratory. Students apply the knowledge learned in their classes and gain professional skills through these experiences, such as budget writing and management. In several of these projects, students learn about and work within Mason's state purchasing processes to purchase items for their projects.

Students, under professional mentorship, established a bike-fix-it station in the MIX student creation space to host bike repair workshops. These students promote alternative transportation through peer education and bike flee maintenance.

A group of students from EVPP 480: Sustainability in Action worked on a project to increase student participation with on-campus composting opportunities. They interviewed students over a two-week period and determined that students have a positive outlook on compost and are willing to do it, they just don't know how nor where to do so on campus.

Students conducted a research project at the Piedmont Rain Garden that measured the microbial communities before and after restoration of the garden took place to document the change in stormwater-based pollutants.

In Spring 2020, the Office of Sustainability (OoS) partnered with Dr. Dann Sklarew’s Environmental Science and Policy (EVPP) 490-008 & EVPP 692-004 Sustainability Planning for Communities course to provide students with the opportunity to develop, with support from OoS, key documents to be used to inform and support Mason’s Sustainability Strategic Plan such as a Peer Review and Assessment, a Stakeholder Analysis, the development and analysis of essential research questions, and a draft of the Strategic Plan for Sustainability. This partnership was recognized at the Social Action and Integrative Learning’s (SAIL) annual Seeds of Change event where it received the award for Outstanding Partnership/Collaboration/Event.

Business for a Better World: The Honey Bee Initiative at George Mason University is one example of students learning and implementing social entrepreneurship to make a difference both in our local community and worldwide. A collaboration between the School of Business and the College of Science, the Honey Bee Initiative works on honey bee sustainability by providing an innovative education, conducting collaborative research, and establishing community partnerships in our local Northern Virginia region and abroad.

https://bees.gmu.edu/

Students in the Wellness Living Learning Community explore methods that increase campus wellness under skilled faculty members. For instance, the group created a ‘Values Museum’ in the common rooms of the residence hall to showcase the importance of values.