Stevens Institute of Technology
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Students from the Stevens Sustainability Coalition (SSC) helped conduct the sustainability learning assessment for this report. They will continue to work with Stevens faculty and staff to engage the Stevens community in improving and implementing sustainability initiatives on campus.

Stevens has on ongoing working relationship with Jennifer Gonzalez, the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Hoboken. This relationship is leveraged to provide learning opportunities for students, while allowing Hoboken to benefit from input from academia, which happens to also be a large stakeholder of the City. The existing lines of communication between Jennifer’s team and the University led to a PhD student’s involvement in Blue+Green Sixth Street – a coalition of business owners, schools, and community & faith-based organizations along 6th Street with a mission to create an innovative “eco-district”. By attending these meetings, the student is exposed to community organizing and is given the opportunity to participate in the brainstorming by offering expertise on innovative solutions. More info on Blue+Green Your Street / Blue+Green Sixth Street can be found at the following link.
https://outsidenewyork.wordpress.com/

Students and faculty work closely with facilities and campus operations to test new research ideas and implement them into the existing infrastructure.

Students and faculty work closely with facilities and campus operations to test new research ideas and implement them into the existing infrastructure.

Students and faculty work closely with facilities and campus operations to test new research ideas and implement them into the existing infrastructure. Students frequently use actual campus utility data to review and assess building HVAC systems.

1. Stop Food Waste Campaign
Every April, Stevens Dining runs a Stop Food Waste campaign during which student volunteers manage a table in the dining hall and weigh food waste from their peers' plates.

2. Sustainability Student Ambassador
The dining hall coffee vendor (which is Rain Forest Alliance Certified) has a student ambassador.

1. Bike Friendly University Certification
A student intern worked with the Traffic Demand Management Manager to collect data required for the Bike Friendly University Certification application and helped brainstorm ways to improve Stevens' rating. Students will continue to be involved in the annual application process.

Students and faculty continue to be involved in recycling programs on campus, increasing the amount diverted from waste. Students and faculty have also conducted research on e-waste recycling on campus.

1. EPA Rainworks Challenge
Through the students developed a GI master plan for the campus, and some of the suggestions from past reports have been implemented on campus.

2. Living Laboratory for Stormwater Green Infrastructure
The Living Laboratory for Stormwater Green Infrastructure is strategically placed in three campus sites on the Stevens Institute of Technology campus. At the North building, there are 40 green roof tables, a rain garden and four bioretention planter boxes. The rain garden on Eighth Street and Hudson is intended to stop nuisance flooding generated by runoff from a roof. The ABS rain garden is intended to reduce the volume of runoff from the ABS building roof. These create different forms of urban bioretention solutions. The leading professor and her students are working with multiple entities to find green infrastructure solutions to the runoff problem in the local Hoboken area, where Stevens is located. Hoboken needs water management solutions that work in a highly developed urban location. That means putting small scale water retention systems everywhere, for a cost-effecitve solution to keep rainwater out of the sewer as opposed to buidling bigger treatment plants and sewer systems.

Dr. Fassman-Beck’s Living Laboratory for Stormwater Green Infrastructure (GI) is a research and demonstration site on the Stevens Institute of Technology campus. With 47 individual GI systems, custom-built from the ground up to measure real-world results, the Living Laboratory is dedicated to engineering GI solutions for urban stormwater challenges. The Living Laboratory’s current inventory includes 4 bioretention planters, 38 pilot-scale green roof systems (plus 2 “conventional” pilot-scale roofs), and 3 rain gardens, along with ~100 sensors. Generating quantitative hydrologic and water quality performance data to advance GI design, modeling, and policy is at the heart of the Living Laboratory. Multi-disciplinary efforts engage Software Engineers for Big Data manipulation and Stevens’ Center for Innovation in Engineering Science and Education to engage the next generation of sustainable development professionals via K-12 STEM education initiatives.

Stevens and the Living Laboratory is a Regional Center of Living Architecture Excellence, in partnership with the Green Infrastructure Foundation and Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.