Thompson Rivers University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Bird collisions with urban structures (“bird strikes”) are a widespread phenomenon in North America and internationally, representing the second leading cause of anthropogenic bird mortality. An estimated 100 million to 1 billion birds perish annually in collisions with buildings across North America (Klem, 1990). Bird strikes happen here at TRU, especially during the migratory periods of May and September. Evidence of bird strikes includes dead/injured birds found at the base of windows, feathers, and dust smudges on windows. The Campus Activity Centre and Sciences Buildings have been reported by faculty and staff as “hot spots” for bird strikes. These poor creatures are either dealt with by Facilities crews or else quickly fall victim to predators.

This project engages TRU students (Janelle Zimmer, Matthew McIsaac) staff (Karl Fultz) and faculty (Dr. Tom Dickinson).

The Purpose of this Project is to make TRU safer for our wild bird population by:
1. Researching the extent of the bird strike problem on campus
2. Educating TRU stakeholders on the bird strike problem
3. Researching solutions that are cost-effective, workable, and appeal to stakeholders
4. Applying the chosen solution to a Pilot Project and measuring the results
5. Taking the lessons learned to formulate recommendations for further remediation One of the foremost future remediation actions will be to determine the best window film to install on all new campus buildings, as a course of formal protocol.

Under the supervision of Dr. Karl Larsen, and in collaboration with The Osoyoos Indian Band and the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, TRU student Dana Eye initiated Western Canada’s first study on pregnant Western Rattlesnakes. To date, the research team has tracked the movements of 25 pregnant snakes and has identified 18 gestation sites. The data collected from these sites has provided critical information to land users and land managers. Much of Eye’s time has also been spent doing community outreach. She developed resources for land users to increase their understanding of rattlesnake movement patterns, of how they give birth and of how to walk and work safely while in their habitat.

Amie Schellenberg, an instructor at Thompson Rivers University, is in the process of installing a demo site that includes 4 solar demonstrations on the hill between the ITTC building and Facilities. This demo site helps facilitate the tools needed to educate her students as well as others. The use of these implements and infrastructures will be incorporated into the curriculum, specifically in Power Engineering and HVAC. Those lessons revolve around energy production and system efficiency. Emphasizing the sites, benefits, infrastructure incorporation, and educational capabilities. This solar demonstration will be used by RE and Electrical students moving forward to demonstrate 4 common PV mounting methods. Schellenberg hopes to install a wind generator as well as an EV charging station on the bluff above the ITTC during the 2nd phase of a demo site.

Faculty member Amie Shellenberg is installing 4 solar demonstrations on the TRU’s demo site between the ITTC building and Facilities. Two of which are complete and operational, and two will be installed by students in the Renewable Energy fundamentals class in 2021. In addition, TRU also produced an inter-departmental collaboration on campus, the Solar Road Project. Canada’s first solar electric walkway, the solar walkway will gather enough energy from the sun to produce about 10,000 Kilowatt (kW) hours of electricity annually. This ongoing project is a continuous example used to educate students in the collaborating departments and only the beginning of the proposed project by lead Michael Mehta.

In the TRU Culinary Arts programs, students are exposed to and participate in a comprehensive scope of multidisciplinary and experiential learning practices surrounding whole food preparation and practice. The program revolves around being a ‘working kitchen’ in two functioning restaurants (Accolades and Scratch Café) within the program building. Within the building students learn the theory of proper food preparation and then, under the supervision of their instructors, put it into practice and prepare and serve breakfast, lunch and dinner during several days of the week. The program even has a walk-in food retail outlet. By working side-by-side with their instructors, students have an opportunity to continuously seek better and more sustainable methods and systems of delivering outstanding meals and service to the entire TRU community. The programs engage a mandate of “local, sustainable and fresh” and strive to embrace each of these guiding pillars through purchasing and delivery methods. Sustainable practice by the purveyor is an important factor in purchasing decisions, including their locality to lessen the environmental footprint. The program also has its own herb garden beside the building and students are exposed to the basics of growing and harvesting the herbs. All programs participate in a fulsome recycling program including composting all food waste. The program is working with the TRU Sustainability Office and is examining the area of containers for take–away service with the goal of eventually having all containers be either compostable or reusable. Through careful planning, students also practice excellent habits to reduce as much food waste as possible. Students are advised of all of these practices and actively participate in having them become normal practice to take forward into working in the Food and Dining Industry.

Elise Menard, faculty member with the TRU Horticulture Program, was a key member of the organizing committee for the new TRU Campus Tree Program that started in September 2021. The focus of the program is threefold: planting, caring, and preserving of campus trees. She engaged her students from the Horticulture Program in the tree program and they learnt key skills during their hands-on activities around planting of many different types of trees, and caring for existing trees through such activities as mulching and pruning. They also learned about irrigation fundamentals and proper tree selection criteria. The Tree Program was active during the fall and spring growing seasons and 102 trees were planted. The program will restart in September 2022 for another full year. Although tree preservation ideas were discussed, no substantive activities took place during the first year with the tree program.
In November 2021, TRU student Marisa Amgammana proposed a project within the Campus Tree Program to plant a 'mini forest' (along the lines proposed by Shubhendu Sharma in this TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjUsobGWhs8&t=55s). She is working with members of the TRU Sustainability Office and the Campus Tree Program, and this project is scheduled to start with the first tree plantings in October 2022.

In 2020 MScENV student Aaron Wiebe began his project on Transportation. Aaron's project looks at the way power-assisted technology like ebikes and electric scooters are changing the way society commutes. He has partnered with the Kamloops Association for Low Carbon Transportation (KALCAT) where he is acting president as a way of working with the City of Kamloops directly to address issues raised by the community who provide input through KALCAT. The goal of the research and partnerships is to improve the safety of low carbon commuting options in Kamloops while providing research insights into the long-term impacts both on the environment and health of those involved.

Aarush Shori and Jennifer Revel were the lead student auditors in a team of students who helped with a Community Based Social Marketing project that began during the winter 2018 semester and ended in the fall 2019 semester. The purpose of the project was to change students' behaviour so they would not throw contaminants into recycling bins. The students conducted waste audits before and after their efforts and their findings showed a 50% reduction in recycling contamination through their efforts.

MScEnvs Student Kyle Gillich is working on a project in forestry to identify the advantages of alternative management methods in forestry, specifically around varying kinds of strip forestry. The idea is that these strips of removed forest will provide more shade cover preserving snowpack and increasing soil moisture, aiding in water shed conservation efforts as well as forest harvest sustainability.

In 2018/19 the TRU Wellness Centre received a grant to “seek insight into the factors and influences that shape smoking cultures beyond and within campus settings; explore the most appropriate ways a campus community might reflect together on the diverse experience and perspectives among its members; and develop resources collectively to identified issues”.

After receiving this grant, Chelsea Corsi, TRU Wellness Coordinator partnered with Aaron Ladd (faculty member, Respiratory Therapy) to conduct research on campus about smoking cultures through student dialogues and survey questions on the 2019 National College Health Assessment (NCHA). They mentored various student leaders including members of the Student Wellness Ambassador Team (SWAT) (11), nursing practicum students (2), and respiratory therapy students (8), and provided them with literacy and training about true dialogue theory, how to facilitate dialogue/focus-groups, how to prepare and submit a research ethics application, how to obtain informed consent, as well as how to document what was being shared in the dialogues.

The student leaders conducted four separate student dialogue groups (21 participants) in winter 2019 and facilitated open student dialogue groups at a campus-wide Cannabis Café in March 2019 (148 participants). A student was also hired as a research assistant to code all the qualitative data – a project that is just wrapping up (as of Jan 2021).