St. Lawrence College
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

 Our campus Innovation Hub provides space and tools for engagement and for exchanging ideas that help to advance sustainability awareness and action. SLC has several initiatives that operate through the Hub that advance sustainability learning and impact areas such as Campus Engagement, Air & Climate, and Wellbeing and Work, among others. These initiatives have institutional support from the office of Sustainability through guidance, funding, and communications support.

SLC also has an on-campus Enactus chapter whose team utilize the Innovation Hub for developing several projects which are sustainability-focused. This is often done in conjunction with the student club footprint and made possible by the Innovation Hub.

Some projects include: 

• Financial literacy workshops for students – public sessions open to all students.
  
  


• SDG foundations workshops – run in conjunction with the Project Management program which includes a formal learning and student assessment for course credit.
  


• Sustainability & Psychology & Behaviour Studies - final thesis presentations and pitch competition run in conjunction with the Behavioural Studies program and includes a student assessment component for course credit.
  
  


• Mental Health Chill Zone events – Enactus and Footprint run sessions open the SLC community.
  
  


• Food drives such as the annual Halloween Harvest - Enactus / Footprint run for the student foodbank.
  
  


• Winter coat drives Enactus / Footprint run for the student foodbank.
  
  


• Entrepreneurship pitch nights and social enterprise development events.
  
  


• The 'Big Data Analytics' club - student run club.

Through these projects, students have the opportunity to learn about sustainability both in theory and in practice and can collaborate to advance sustainability. 

The Innovation Hub was created as a space in 2018 to connect the community with our college community. Initiatives have been co-developed with the Office of Sustainability and the Innovation Hub to activate the space as a social impact hub. The City of Kingston runs a Mayors Innovation Challenge yearly in collaboration with our teams which is focused on advancing the sustainability of the municipality through projects and social enterprises. The Climate Leadership Program was piloted and developed to empower our students to advance sustainability and increase their skills by diving into workshops and meeting with community-based organizations. The process includes design thinking as students need to run through stages of ideation, building prototypes, and launching their projects. At the end of the training, each team or individual must pitch to a panel of judges for a chance to win funding for their project/social enterprise and then implement the project using the funds. We have existing partnerships with several businesses and community organizations that provide our students with an opportunity to work on sustainability.
These organizations include. - United Way - YGK Thrift - Sustainable Kingston - No.9 Gardens - The River Institute - Kingston Economic Development Corporation - Launch Lab - and several more.

Students in the Energy Systems Engineering Technology program analyze campus energy consumption data to quantify energy intensity and GHG emissions.

Prior to construction beginning on Kingston Campus students in Energy Systems Engineering program modelled the LEED Platinum building in a building modelling software to help provide the financial case for having the building heated and cooled with geothermal heat pumps.

Students work in "Energy House" an off-grid building on campus to analyze and determine what a typical house would require to be net-zero.

Students in the Culinary Management program help operate an on-campus restaurant "Essence". Students determine the meal's food miles and environmental impacts of the food served and prepared. Culinary students are challenged to divert waste properly and are graded on their efficiency and minimizing impacts of food waste, plastic waste and paper waste. Personal compost bins must also be emptied every day to encourage this practice outside of the college.

Over the past year SLC's sustainability team has completed three 'bioblitzes' which included ecologists running campus sessions with SLC students and staff. These bioblitzes taught students about our campus grounds about the importance of biodiversity, species living on campus grounds, the role of pollinators in our local ecosystem, and what actions we can take to support life on land. These monitoring activities will be ongoing (twice annually) and aim of integrate more into academic programming as opposed to just engagement opportunities. Please see OP9 + OP10 for more information on SLC's biodiversity monitoring. 
Although this initiative has no formal learning component, it is included under as it falls under Public Engagement and Grounds impact areas. 

We have completed a pilot workshop/event that was focused on onboarding our students (especially those new to the Canadian transit system) to ride public transit confidently by taking them on a guided tour through the city. This training and confidence building included general etiquette, how to understand the different transit apps, what you can do on the bus, and generally reducing any barriers such as how to attach a bike to the front rack.

Although this initiative has no formal learning component, it is included under  Public Engagement and Transportation impact areas.

Students in the Environmental Technician conducted a waste audit of the Cornwall campus student residence. They analyze the results and make recommendations to the college  on how to improve our recycling and waste programs. Business Analytics students analyze and visualize waste data and the progress of the reusable container program.

Students in the Environmental Technician program collect aquatic organisms and analyze data from the campus waterfront location. They also participate in ongoing work with the adjacent River Institute on the Cornwall campus and assist in monitoring the shoreline erosion.

The student group Enactus runs the regular Mental Health Chill Zone through the campus Innovation Hub. The aim of these events is to support student mental health and reslience and increase campus engagement. Although this initiative has no formal learning component, it is included under as it falls under Public Engagement and Wellbeing and Work impact areas.