University of Massachusetts Amherst
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

There are many courses at UMass that use the campus as a living lab focused on engaging the campus community around sustainability issues. One example of the living lab approach is the Integrated Concentration in Sciences (iCons) program courses.

https://icons.cns.umass.edu/

The Integrated Concentration in Science (UMass iCons) Program is a 20-credit certificate available to all majors in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at UMass Amherst. iCons students take iCons 1 in the spring of their 1st or 2nd year, learning problem-solving, teamwork, and communication attitudes and skills, while applying STEM concepts and skills to tackle real-world problems. In the second year of iCons, each student cohort splits into two tracks: Renewable Energy and Biomedicine/Biosystems, with a different section of iCons 2 for each track. The focus of iCons 2 is honing the attitudes and skills of effective 360 degree communication — communicating clearly and persuasively with: (i) STEM workers in one’s field, (ii) STEM workers in other fields, and (iii) non-STEM workers. Communication in i2e is considered broadly as reading, writing, speaking, discussing, and debating on issues relevant to current problems in renewable energy. Each student tailors i2e to their interests and needs by choosing their own set of learning goals upon which their progress will be measured, and their own set of renewable energy problems that pique their interests.

The iCons 2 Energy course uses the energy infrastructure and climate action planning of the campus as a living lab and in the past years and current years gives the students an opportunity to pitch their project ideas in multiple engagement platforms. The program challenges the students to develop renewable energy solutions that will “green” the campus energy infrastructure. The program is linked up with the newly launched UMass Carbon Zero (UMCZ), which aims to transition the campus to 100% renewable energy by 2032. Students present their projects at a campus Energy Forum event and to the UMCZ leadership, which consists of faculty, staff, and students.

In the fall, the UMass Amherst Regional Planning Studio of ten students and their professor teamed up with the town of Orange's economic development office to create an Economic Development Self-Assessment Exercise (EDSAE).

The EDSAE is a tool that is used to help evaluate how a town's local economy is performing to more effectively incorporate improvements and sustainable practices with a goal of resilience.

The studio was tasked with developing a robust and creative public engagement process during the time of the covid-19 crisis. Our engagement was a useful strategy in helping to shape all of our final deliverables including the Economic Development Self-Assessment Tool (EDSAE). To ensure that we connect with a representative sample of Orange's community members, we conducted business interviews, interviews with government officials, and intercept interviews with residents and visitors.

Many courses at UMass use the campus as a living lab for learning about air and climate. One course, Public Health 397B - Air Pollution and Health examines air quality and where the pollutants come from. Students are trained to think about air pollutant exposure and how to minimize exposure. The goal of this course is for students to answer these questions and develop experience with tools to quantify the environmental risks of air pollution. Class projects that evaluate air quality from various places helps to put these concepts into practical, real-world terms.

Exposure to air pollution is unavoidable and ranks as one of the top ten global health risks in the development of non-communicable diseases. Air pollution represents a complex mixture of thousands of gaseous and particulate chemicals. Case studies will be used to illustrate the environmental health concerns surrounding major air pollution emission sources, including vehicle emissions, activities in our homes and from energy generation. THe course explores methods to measure exposure to air pollutants, trace the fate of these pollutants in the body and discuss the biological mechanisms which underpin the onset of pollutant-induced respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Through readings and discussions, this course will explore why certain populations are more vulnerable to air pollution as well as contrast pollutant exposure and disease risk across developed and developing nations. The course also connects how climate change impacts air quality and environmental health.

UMass Clean Energy Corps is an interdisciplinary service learning program. Each spring semester, the class conducts clean energy studies and building audits at no cost for several cities and towns across Massachusetts.

Clean Energy Corps provides impartial, specific, actionable recommendations to retrofit facilities through energy efficiency, improved energy management, clean heating and cooling technologies, renewable energy generation, and energy storage. When appropriate, our recommendations include a combination of (1) short term actions to improve operating efficiency and address any immediate issues without major capital expenditures and (2) longer term solutions for decarbonization. We provide analysis to support our recommendations, such as calculations of potential energy and cost savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Our holistic approach also helps to create healthier buildings and improved work and learning environments by addressing ventilation, indoor air quality, humidity and temperature control issues.

Clean Energy Corps students obtain valuable experience in working with clients, delivering technical presentations, and applying their learning on data analysis, building science and diagnostics, and energy technologies.

There are a number of building and energy-focused living lab courses taught through the Building & Construction Technology (BCT) Program. They include ECO 697DL: Sustainable Certification Programs and BCT 597Q: Living Labs: Solving for Carbon Neutrality. For example, BCT 597Q explores the concept of using living labs to accelerate innovation in the realm of low-carbon approaches to buildings, materials, technologies, policies, and ways of living.

Another program that addresses energy through the living lab approach is the iCons Program. Students in the Integrated Concentration in Science focus on either energy or biomedicine and have been assigned to develop energy flow diagrams of the entire UMass campus. They regularly tie in campus energy systems when studying the following topics: Renewable Energy Biomass-fired Power Plants, UMass Power Plant Efficiencies, Amherst Solar Energy Farm (new), Fuel Cells and Soldier Power (new), and Nuclear Energy.
http://www.cns.umass.edu/icons-program/.

Bolstering UMass Amherst’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2032, UMass Amherst Dining Services has made the commitment to measure the carbon impact of its menu. In doing so, they will be the first college or university dining program in the country to include carbon footprint for individual dishes.

The initiative will help students reduce their carbon footprint with their everyday food choices by including a carbon rating on the menu identifiers.

The project features an A-E carbon rating for all menu items at dining commons on the menu identifiers, online, and on the UMass Dining App. This project included the engagement of student interns.

The Student Farm is an avenue for UMass students to learn how to operate their own farms from growing practices to marketing techniques. The UMass farm has grown to manage 20 acres with ten acres in production each season, servicing a 125 member on-campus CSA, UMass Earthfoods Cafe, UMass Dining Services, four Big Y Supermarkets, and the UMass Student Farmers Market. Every year, twelve to fifteen new Student Farmers take the lead in planning the season, working the land, and harvesting and marketing the produce. They offer a Fall CSA where the produce is planned, planted, grown, harvested and sold by students!
https://stockbridge.cns.umass.edu/student-farm.

The formal learning component of the Student Farm is the Student Farming Enterprise, STOCKSCH 376 "Managing the Student Farm I: Planning for Production" during the spring semester, working on the farm during summer session, and then "Managing the Student Farm II: Harvesting, Marketing and Finances" in the fall. Both the spring and fall semester lecture courses are designed to be taken with the spring practicum course STOCKSCH 398E "The Student Farming Enterprise" and fall practicum course STOCKSCH 498E "The Student Farming Enterprise."

In AY2021-2022, UMass launched EWEMass. Bringing together social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and farmers, Sustainable EweMass is a collaborative, cross-campus, interdisciplinary project using sheep as a touchpoint for thinking about the past, present, and future at UMass Amherst and beyond. The project offers an opportunity for students, faculty, staff and the broader community to collectively explore the multiple dimensions of land management and animal husbandry, their environmental and social impacts, and issues of social justice, community and access to the natural world. Sustainable EweMass engages in the spaces of environmental education, community-scale sustainability, wildlife biology and ecology, farming, art history and landscape architecture. For more information, please visit: https://www.ewemass.org/

The Arboriculture program, which engages both associate and bachelor degree seeking students, uses the campus as an outdoor lab for teaching about trees, health, and management. These students intern with the Grounds division of the Physical Plant. https://www.umass.edu/ses/program/arboriculture-community-forest-management

Stockbridge School of Agriculture students also intern with the Grounds Division of the Physical Plant, growing plants and flowers for campus events and to make available for campus offices. These students have designed and built the first Pollinator Garden on the campus and other wildlife habitat areas in collaboration with Landscape Services and Grounds. https://stockbridge.cns.umass.edu/

The UMass Campus Store has been actively developing its sustainability-focused section, which includes apparel and school supplies. Working with student interns, they are developing metrics to evaluate different products and help the consumer make an informed decision. Student training is central to the store's approach. The purchasing director is a Sustainability Science (MS) alum and has dramatically changed purchasing practices at the store and engaged student training at every stage of planning.

Dr. Eleni Christofa teaches three related courses that all use UMass as a living lab. They include: 1) Transportation Sustainability, 2) Pedestrians and Bicycles, and 3) Public Transportation Systems, all of which are inherently related to sustainability. Students develop management strategies and assess design practices that improve person mobility, air quality, equity, and safety in transportation systems where multiple modes co-exist (cars, buses, bicycles, pedestrians).

Several courses use the campus waste system as a living laboratory but most comprehensively is the Environmental Science course "Solving Environmental Problems Together" taught by Professor Craig Nicolson.

EnvSci 445 is designed to offer students opportunities to become practiced at workable answers to environmental problems and can explain their solutions clearly and persuasively, "in a hands-on way using the campus waste system as our laboratory for problem solving."

During this course the class visits the UMass Waste Recovery Transfer Facility (WRTF) and then writes an op-ed to the school paper about "zero waste goals" and whether they beleive it is a fantasy or a stretch-goal.

The two projects that use campus as a living lab:
Project 1 is a proposal which pitches a solution students have to develop for a campus waste system issue (e.g. piloting dorm composting for a given area).
In project 2 they develop an environmental communication video related to the campus energy system.

Each spring, the course Sustainable Green Infrastructure Planning and Design (LA 591I/RP 591I)
is taught by professor Robert L. Ryan. The course uses the entire physical campus as a living lab for the final projects. This course introduces students to the concepts, theories, and applications of greenway and green infrastructure planning at multiple scales, including the site level, neighborhood, and regional scales. A particular area of focus is the relationship of green infrastructure for improving hydrology and riparian corridors as part of comprehensive green space planning for recreation and cultural resources. The course looks at a wide range of systems including water, transportation, and food systems. A case study approach is used to study green infrastructure projects both domestically and internationally from a planning and policy perspective, as well as implementation.

Final project: Since this course is focused on helping students address “real-world” environmental problems while accommodating human needs, the final project allows students to synthesize the skills and knowledge they have learned in the class to an actual site/situation of the campus. Students choose their own site and general topic related to the course; and write a report discussing how they would address this environmental problem using a multi-functional green infrastructure solution.

Many of the projects that have come out of this course have focused on greening the Tan Brook watershed that runs through the center of the campus.

This course syllabus and information has been posted to the UMass Sustainability ScholarWorks page making it available to the entire global community here: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=sustainableumass_educationresources

The School of Earth & Sustainability offers numerous student internship experiences each year that directly engages undergraduate and graduate students in campus-level planning and coordination related to sustainability. For AY2021-2022, SES worked with four students to support its SES Steering Committee and other cross-campus initiatives, including the Sustainability Strategy Working Group.

UMass prides itself for it's food equity and social justice education, especially with a focus on farm-based education and social equity in the food system.

Professor Sarah Berquist, instructor and program coordinator of the sustainable food and farming program in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture offers hands-on projects that are actively working toward a more just and sustainable food system. In collaboration with the student farm, she co-founded and manages the Food for All Program. She also mentors students who design and execute garden-based lessons with K-6 grade students with the School Garden Program at Amherst Regional Public Schools. The formal applied student learning comes in the course STOCKSCH 397AL - Agricultural Leadership and Community Education and STOCKSCH 118 - Sustainable Farming and Food Systems, both entail learning on the campus farms at the Agricultural Learning Center and UMass Student Farm.

Numerous courses and student experiences address sustainable practices as they relate to investment and finance. Several classes include projects that use our own campus and practices to apply theories and methods. They include: Foundations of Sustainable Enterprise (MANAGMNT 366), Strategic Management for Sustainable World (MANAGMNT 488), and Social Entrepreneurship (MANAGMNT 462), which focus on sustainability aspect of entrepreneurial and corporate practices.

Numerous courses across the colleges address sustainability and wellness together. One of our introductory, general education courses, is a prime example. Public Health 160 - My Body, My Health. Taught as a team-based, service-learning, collaborative format, students actively participated in classroom discussions and worked on a campus-focused, team-based project that addressed wellness, resilience, and community health in the university setting.

This data was collected through SPIRE and faculty surveys. It also required direct communication with faculty to obtain syllabus and course information in some cases.