Vanderbilt University
EN-3: Student Life

¥ Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility (SPEAR): SPEAR’s mission is to increase environmental awareness and promote more environmentally sustainable habits and infrastructure within the Vanderbilt and Nashville community. Various projects sponsored by this organization include: cardboard crew, compost discovery area, house energy competitions, Climate Change Solutions Week, pollinator garden and Rites of Spring recycling.
¥ Vanderbilt Student Government’s Environmental Affairs Committee: This committee works to make Vanderbilt a more sustainable university by collaborating with fellow students, faculty, and administrators on a host of environmental issues with hopes of making Vanderbilt a leader in developing practical and effective solutions.
¥ Think Gold, Act Green Coalition: The “Think Gold, Act Green” Coalition, managed by Vanderbilt Student Government’s Environmental Affairs Committee, serves as a liaison to the various environmental groups on campus and works with these organizations to develop, coordinate, and promote recycling and energy/resource conservation on campus. It also strives to develop unique, cost-effective initiatives for lessening Vanderbilt’s use of resources, invigorates the student body to be more environmentally friendly, and encourages the university to take a leadership role in the global battle against climate change.
¥ Owen Graduate School of Management Net Impact: Owen Net Impact is a member of the larger Net Impact community with over 150 student and professional chapters worldwide. Net Impact aims to positively contribute to a community of new leaders in fields such as corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, international development, and environmental sustainability who will use business to improve the world. Net Impact has in the past hosted events such as a Green Career Symposium, “Green Week” and the Net Impact National Conference. This group has also partnered with the Sustainability and Environmental Management Office to devise business plans and programming for various environmental projects and efforts on campus.
¥ Vanderbilt Initiative for Vegetarian Awareness (VIVA): VIVA aims to advocate a healthy lifestyle that has a positive effect on humans, animals, and the planet.
¥ Environmental Law Society: The Environmental Law Society is an organization for students interested in learning more about environmental law and environmental legal careers. This group has sponsored numerous speakers, panels, and activities since its inception and aims to strengthen relationships between Vanderbilt Law students and local environmental groups.
¥ National Arboreal Project: The Nashville Arboreal Project's mission is to educate Nashville's youth about the environment while reinvigorating our community's connection to nature by planting the seeds for a greener future.
¥ Wildlife Awareness Community: The Wildlife Awareness Community's mission is to promote animal welfare in the contexts of zoos, entertainment industries, research facilities, and the wild (i.e. anti-poaching and habitat preservation) via education, fundraising, and volunteering.

¥ Vanderbilt Community Garden- The garden is student-run and includes more than just plants and produce, it acts as a testing ground for sustainable gardening methods. The community garden includes a greenhouse, a vermicompost system, a rainwater capture system, an aquaponics system, and an apiary. Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility (SPEAR) currently manages the garden. https://anchorlink.vanderbilt.edu/organization/vandygardeninitiative/about
¥ Latin American Ethnobotanical Garden – Latin American ethnobotanical garden features 49 of the most culturally significant plants from the region. The garden was opened in 2017 and is sponsored by the Vanderbilt Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). The species selected reflect CLAS’ particular research strengths in Mexico, Central America, Brazil, the Andes, and the Black Atlantic regions. The garden contains a sage section, an agave section and an annual section, which features important food crops like amaranth, corn, squash and beans.
¥ Gardens on the Commons – one of the thirteen funded Eos Projects and proposed by Laurie Woods, lecturer in sociology, and Tristan Abbott, undergraduate student, this project is engaging first-year students of the Vanderbilt Ingram Commons residential community in discussions about social and environmental issues associated with the agri-food system by starting sustainable container gardens. The produce from these gardens will be used for programming and donated in Nashville.
¥ Menus of Change Advisory Group – the Menus of Change Advisory Group works to advance the Menus of Change principles at Vanderbilt. Co-founded and jointly led by Stanford University and The Culinary Institute of America, the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative is a working group of leading scholars, food service business leaders and executive chefs from invited colleges and universities who are accelerating efforts to move Americans toward healthier, more sustainable plant-forward diets.
¥ Community Garden Advisory Group – This group was formed in 2018 to recommend a new community garden on Vanderbilt’s campus. The group consisted of faculty, administration, staff, and community members from across the University and Nashville. The group is working to develop plans for a new community garden to be installed in 2019 that integrates student participation, community involvement, educational opportunities, and food provision for both VU and the community.
• The Food Waste Working Group is a subset of the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative Advisory Committee. The Food Waste Working Group is focused on helping Vanderbilt achieve food waste reductions. The working group includes a variety of staff, faculty, and students from across the university. The working group liaisons to the Zero Waste Advisory Committee and will help them devise a strategy to meet their Food Waste reduction goal that will be set at the conclusion of the Zero Waste Plan.

VanderBIKES is a Vanderbilt student run organization offering bicycle rentals by the day, semester or year. The program gives the students the ease of bicycle transportation without having to worry about storage and maintenance and encourages students to explore Nashville beyond Vanderbilt’s borders. http://studentorgs.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbikes/
Leaves Plates is a company which produces various types of fully biodegradable flatware and helps alleviate some of the rampant pollution on a global level. The flatware produced by Leaves Plates aids its customers lead a more sustainable lifestyle posing zero threat to the environment and leaving no ecological footprint. The company is run by Vanderbilt students.
In spring of 2018, Vanderbilt students participated in bringing ofo to campus for a pilot program and acted as representatives for the company. Ofo was the world’s first and largest station-free bike sharing platform.

¥ Vanderbilt Green Fund - The Vanderbilt Green Fund is a fund of $150,000 set aside for sustainability projects proposed by students. Members of SPEAR and VSG established the Green Fund in the spring of 2011. The VGF looks for innovative and educational ideas that improve sustainability on campus. The Vanderbilt Green Fund (VGF) was designed to systematically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and improve the sustainability of Vanderbilt University by funding student-initiated projects with both environmental and economic benefits, and by enabling students, faculty, and administration to engage in the process of transitioning to a clean and sustainable energy future. Any student, faculty, or group associated with Vanderbilt University can propose a project for consideration.
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/sustainvu/what-we-do/vanderbilt-green-fund/EOS Project - The Eos Project is a microfinance internal grant initiative that supports innovative initiatives at Vanderbilt University to promote understanding of urgent environmental issues and social action-pathways to respond to the challenges of climate change. The goal is to energize attention to environment/society concerns in diverse disciplines and campus constituencies. The project organizes programming and offers small grants and fellowships to support faculty and students to develop the vision, knowledge, leadership skills, and networks needed to address pressing problems at the intersections of ecology and social justice, where the well-being of human communities is inseparable from the well-being of more-than-human life-worlds.

Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos hosted a Chancellor’s Charter Bus tour to explore sustainability in September. The tour stopped at the McGruder Neighbors’ Community Garden and the C.E. McGruder Family Resource Center to discuss food insecurity and waste, and this stop featured a panel focused on the food insecurity epidemic afflicting the nation. The next stop was Music City Solar, the first and only solar park in Nashville. The park, located in Madison on what was previously a Metro landfill, houses more than 17,000 solar panels and offers clean, renewable energy for NES customers throughout the region. The last stop was at the Music City Center and incorporated a lunch-and-learn presentation on downtown sustainable projects.

In October of 2018, the Vanderbilt Division of Administration hosted the FutureVU Mobility Expo, which gave students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to explore Vanderbilt’s mobility and transportation progress and plans. The Vanderbilt community got to learn about MoveVU, the university’s new mobility strategy, as well as provide input on concepts for future improvements. The event also featured a new Nashville WeGo bus, safe-riding courses for bikes and scooters, and displays about transportation research conducted by Vanderbilt faculty. Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos and Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner John Schroer opened the event with remarks, and Michael Skipper, the executive director of the Greater Nashville Regional Council, delivered a lecture entitled “Middle Tennessee: The Future of Mobility in a Changing Region.” This event came after a series of transportation discussion events last spring.

In the spring, the Vanderbilt Center for Transportation and Operational Resiliency hosted a series of talks relating to the proposed Nashville transit plan. There were four talks, including “What is Nashville’s Transit Plan,” “The Nashville Transit Plan – Emerging Mobility Technologies: Enabler, Disrupter, or Both?”, “Additional Perspectives on the Nashville Transit Plan,” and “The Nashville Transit Plan: Decision Time.” In addition, the university came out publicly in support of the transit plan.

At the beginning of the fall semester, Vanderbilt hosted a two-day series of events focusing on FutureVU’s BlueSky Vision, which is the university’s strategic planning and implementation initiative to re-envision campus energy infrastructure. More than 150 community members participated in this event. The Division of Administration hosted consulting partners from HDR, McLennan Design, and Integral Group to further brainstorm and discuss goals and strategies. Jason McLennan, the creator of the Living Building Challenge, spoke to kick off the workshop, and the results of discussion were incorporated into the BlueSky Vision report. During a public lecture, Jason F. McLennan, creator of the Living Building Challenge and “the Steve Jobs of the green building industry” urged students, faculty, staff, and community to push the boundaries of what is possible from a sustainability viewpoint, adding that improving buildings and land use should also improve health, wellness and touch the minds and hearts of those that use it.

The annual Commons Unplugged Green Forum featured Vanderbilt University professors Michael Vandenbergh and Jonathan Gilligan. Vandenbergh and Gilligan discussed their new book about the role of private actors in climate mitigation. The Green Forum is directed at first year students as part of Commons Unplugged week.

Vanderbilt has also launched a series of “pop-up” projects aimed at activating outdoor spaces around campus in a sustainable way. Each pop-up included FutureVU “experts” who were available for discussion. Pop-ups are focused on sustainability and greening of the campus through FutureVU. Projects transform underutilized spaces with the goal to green and beautify campus spaces for the enjoyment of all, promote a sustainable and walkable campus, encourage community building and social interaction and celebrate creativity and artistic expression. Pop-Ups that occurred in 2018 include: PARK(ing) Day, which draws attention to the use of public space in urban areas by temporarily turning parking spaces into parks and parklets; Central Neighborhood, which became an interactive park to provide opportunities for community events and recreational activities and showcase the planned redesign of the area; and a pop-up indoor arboretum, which brought the benefits of greenspace and outdoor exposure to students during a stressful and cold finals season.

Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Pennsylvania State University, discussed “The Dangers of Climate Change Denial” in March. Mann, who serves as director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, is one of the researchers responsible for developing the “hockey stick” model of climate change. More recently, he has discussed how climate change is accelerating extreme weather events.

Additionally, the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and the Environment, the Civil and Environmental Engineering department, and the Earth and Environmental Sciences department all have weekly sustainability symposia and speaker series that are open to the public with students as the intended audience.
http://discoverarchive.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/5128
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/americanstudies/sustainability/events.php

Other lectures and events:

2018
Event, Green Fair
Event, Getting Around Nashville
Michael Skipper, Executive Director of the Greater Nashville Regional Council: Middle Tennessee: The Future of Mobility in a Changing Region
Chelsea Hamilton, Vanderbilt SEMO Sustainability Outreach Coordinator: Greening Your Home and Personal Life
Event, Green Poetry Reading
Isaac Ullah, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at San Diego State University: Computational Modeling, Archaeology, and the Anthropocene
Commons Unplugged
Event, PARKing Day
Michael Vandenbergh and Jonathan Gilligan, Professors at Vanderbilt University: River Talks
Jason McLennan, creator of the Living Building Challenge: The Power of Transformative Goals
Event, Making Nashville Living Building Ready
Event, Bike to Vanderbilt Day
Vicki Arroyo and Jessica Grannis, Georgetown Climate Center: Climate Change Update: People, Policies, and Place
Amitav Ghosh, author: Commodities, Conflict, and Climate Change
Deborah Coen, Professor at Yale University: Hapsburg History for the Anthropocene
Yoram Bauman, economic and environmental comedian
Panel discussion, Additional Perspective on the Nashville Transit Plan
Blake Hudson, Houston Law Center: Relative Administrability, Conservatives, and Environmental Regulatory Reform
Event, Vanderbilt Transit Forum
Mike Gunter, Professor at Rollins College: Tales of an Ecotourist: What Travel to Wild Places Can Teach Us About Climate Change
Michael Mann, Professor at Pennsylvania State University: Climate Connections
Event, What is Nashville’s Transit Plan Lunch Talk
Panel discussion, Careers in Environmental Law
Event, Tu B’shvat Shabbat
Daniel Raimi, Professor at the University of Michigan: The Fracking Debate: The Risks, Benefits, and Uncertainties of the Shale Revolution

2017
Matthew Turner, Professor at Brown University: Subways and Urban Air Pollution
Amanda Little, writer in residence at Vanderbilt University: The Fate of Food
Danny Reible, Donovan Maddox, Distinguished Engineering Chair, Texas Tech: Sustaining Water Availability in Rural Communities: Expanding Use of Poor Quality Waters
Gil Gulickson, Crops Technology Editor for Successful Farming magazine/Agriculture.com: annual SPEAR lecture
Keven Meehan, Professor of English and Director, Haitian Studies Project, University of Central Florida: Provisions: Popularizing Hydroponics as Climate Change Adaptation in the Caribbean
Benjamin Sovacool, professor at Aarhus University: Conceptual Frameworks and New Frontiers in Energy Justice
Nikki Detraz, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Memphis: Gender and Climate Change Connections: Narratives of Vulnerability and Resilience
Event, Engage Green: Vanderbilt Sustainability Tour
Panel discussion, the Energy, Environment, and Land Use program: Private Sector Demand for Renewable Power
Event, Engage Green: Fermentation
Ryan Cooper, Irrigation Specialist: Fall Gardening and Composting
Event, University and Resources Fair
Event, Dores in the Dark
Event, Screening of Look and See by Wendell Berry
Commons Unplugged: environmental awareness week celebrates sustainability, natural resource conservation and energy conservation through various events focusing on Vanderbilt’s first-year student population.

2016
Ed Rubin, Professor at Vanderbilt Law: The Heatstroke Line
Michael Gerrard, Professor of Environmental Law at Columbia University: The Paris Climate Agreement: A Review and Assesment
Barbara Muraca, Co-Director of the International Association of Environmental Philosophy: “Degrowth” and “The Papal Encyclical”
Dr. Samuel Graham, from Georgia Tech and Energy Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Lab: Gallium Nitride semiconductor
Nicole Detraz, Professor at University of Memphis and author of Environmental Security and Gender: Gender, Environmental Security, and Climate Change
Norman Wirzba, Professor of Theology, Ecology, and Agrarian Studies at Duke University Divinity and Nicholas School of the Environment: Why Sustainable Agriculture Matters
Troy Rule, Professor at Arizona State Law: Property and Renewable Energy”
Jason W. Moore, Professor of Sociology at Binghamton: Capitalism in the Web of Life - Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital”
Ben Lowe, Author: Mobilizing Culture to Confront Environmental Crises
Nancy Tuana, Professor at Penn State University: Being Affected by Climate Change - The Anthropocene and the Body of Ethics
William Boyd, Ann Carlson, Jim Rossi, and Amanda Garcia, Professors of the Southern Environmental Law Center: Climate Change & The Utility Rate
Thomas Andrews, Author: Coyote Valley - Deep History in the Rockies
Richard Keller, Professor at University of Wisconsin- Madison: Anecdotal Life - Isolation, Vulnerability, and Social Marginalization during the 2003 Heat Wave in Paris
Irene Klaver, Professor at UT Denton: Water Issues
Joyce Chaplin, Professor of History at Harvard University: Environmental Humanities
Kim Wasserman-Neto, Community Activist Leader: Seeking New Metaphors - Mobilizing Culture to Confront Environmental Crises
David Pellow, Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara: Race, Gender, Nation, and Species - New Directions in Environmental Justice Studies
Amanda Little, Professor of English at Vanderbilt: The Future of Food
Jon Shefner, Chair of Sociology at the University of Tennessee: Eastern Tennessee Green Jobs Project
Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program: Black Lives Matter and Saving the Planet - How the Movements for Racial Justice and the Environment Converge
Sophie Bouffier, Professor at Aix-Marseille University: Mater and the Matrix
Shaul Cohen, Professor of Geology at the University of Oregon: Can There be Common Ground? Environment, Identity, and Community in Palestine-Israel
Keven Meehan, Professor of English and Haitian Studies at the University of Central Florida: Provisions - Popularizing Hydroponics as Climate Change Adaptation in the Caribbean
Paul Kramer, Professor at Vanderbilt: City of Trees
Sarra Tlili, Professor of Arabic at the University of Florida: Nonhuman Creation’s Devotion to God in the Islamic Tradition - Significance and Ecological Impact
Alex Nading, Professor at the University of Edinburgh: Mosquitoes, Microbes, and Toxic Chemicals in Global Health - The View from Medical Anthropology
Adam Freed, previous Deputy Director of NYC Mayor Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability: Big City Sustainability
Shannon Broome, Hunton & Williams Law Firm: Clean Power Plan
Event, Know Tomorrow: Climate Change Awareness
Miles Barr, founder and CEO of Ubiquitous Energy: Invention, Engineering, and Entrepreneurship
Event, Climate Connections: The Intersection of Environmental Sustainability and Other Topics

¥ Green poetry event: Vanderbilt Creative Writing held a Green Poetry reading co-sponsored by the Program in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Eight poems were selected to be read that were thematically related to the environment, eco-consciousness, and the place of humans in the natural setting. Cash prizes were given to the winners.
¥ ReVerb: Created by the Kefi Project, ReVerb is an attempt to take the ordinary things of life and to remind us that they can be used in beautiful and unexpected ways. In partnership with SEMO, Kefi completed an interactive, musical installation in conjunction with the American Gamelan Concert held at the Blair School of music. The installation celebrated reuse and recycling. The art installation demonstrated the wide range of options we have to reuse and recycle everyday items, and echoed the percussion/musicality of the Gamelan by being a musical instrument itself. The art piece included three interactive pillars, each representing one of the three pillars of consumer sustainability – reduce, reuse, recycle – with each pillar being made out of a different recyclable material. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/sustainvu/2015/02/blair-school-of-music-vortex-percussion-presents-the-american-gamelan/ https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152819963618920.1073741835.234117583919&type=3
¥ FutureVU Pop-Up Events: Vanderbilt launched a series of “pop- up” projects aimed at activating outdoor spaces around campus in a sustainable way. Projects transform underutilized spaces with the goal to green and beautify campus spaces for the enjoyment of all, promote a sustainable and walkable campus, encourage community building and social interaction and celebrate creativity and artistic expression. Events included programming like yoga classes and collaborative interactive art creation that used re-purposed materials. In addition, many of the events highlighted ongoing sustainability efforts and projects.
¥ Bottled: An Exploration of Water and the Plastic that Often Contains it. Created by the Kefi Project, and composed of over 2,228 plastic water bottles collected from the Vanderbilt campus, the three installations that make up Bottled explored the many components of this liquid integral to our existence. Launched on March 22, 2014 (World Water Day), each piece had its own distinctive message, ranging from sustainability on campus to the limited access of clean water around the globe. https://kefiproject.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/bottled/
¥ Vortex and the American Gamelan: Hosted by Blair School of Music, this event celebrated the world music legacy of Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison. This orchestra, built entirely of recycled metal is “the most beautiful instrument on the planet,” according to Lou Harrison. This unforgettable orchestra of metal — one of only four in the world — traveled 900 miles to Nashville.
¥ Film Screenings: The Vanderbilt organizations SPEAR (Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility) and VFJ (Vanderbilt Food Justice) often hold film screenings on sustainable topics for the student body to watch and participate in a panel discussion after. Examples of these screenings from the last year include “Cowspiracy”, “Food and Empire: Black Gold”, and “Food and empire: The Price of Sugar.”

Wilderness Skills is Vanderbilt University’s premier outdoor experience. The entirely student-run course is designed to integrate academic study with practical experience in the wilderness. It utilizes both the classroom and the environment, combining lectures, films, and discussions with trips to the surrounding areas. The trips are designed to teach students the basic techniques of backpacking, caving, rock climbing, and whitewater paddling. As man is not only an explorer, but the product of the natural world, students are taught the proper methods of coexistence with the environment without harmfully altering it. http://studentorgs.vanderbilt.edu/wilskills/?page_id=56

All first-year VU students are required to participate in the “Vanderbilt Visions” program, which is a small-group orientation program that meets weekly during their first year on campus. The Visions program includes discussion sessions on topics relevant to sustainability and the environment that all students must complete. Additionally, first-year students are required to complete “Commons Reading”, which often includes sustainability themed books (Earth – Bill McKibben and Half the Sky - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn).

Vanderbilt University provides myriad opportunities for students to partake in sustainability and environmentally-focused coursework, research and educational opportunities. In Fall 2011, Vanderbilt’s program in American Studies initiated the Sustainability Project (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/americanstudies/sustainability/index.php), which aims to encourage campus-wide dialogue that will promote and further the university’s sustainability efforts. Due to the success of the program, the Sustainability Project continued into the 2012-13 academic year with a focus on implementing the new minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching sponsored the Cumberland Project (http://cumberland.vanderbilt.edu/) in May 2012, a two-day workshop intended to foster an interdisciplinary teaching and learning community around sustainability themes at Vanderbilt. During the 2011-2012 academic year, various departments within VU, including Department of English and Department of History, taught general courses with a sustainability theme. This was such a success that it was continued into 2012-2013.
http://as.vanderbilt.edu/academics/experientiallearning/vanderbiltvisions/
In 2016, Vanderbilt focused on the Eos Project as it did in 2011 with the Sustainability Project. The Eos Project supports innovative sustainability initiatives at Vanderbilt University to promote understanding of urgent environmental issues and social action-pathways to respond to the challenges of climate change. The goal is to energize attention to environment/society concerns in diverse disciplines and campus constituencies. The project organizes programming and offers small grants and fellowships to support faculty and students to develop the vision, knowledge, leadership skills, and networks needed to address pressing problems at the intersections of ecology and social justice, where the well-being of human communities is inseparable from the well-being of more-than-human life-worlds.
http://eosprojectvu.org/

Vanderbilt partnered with the Urban Green Lab in 2015 on an EPA grant to develop a Mobile sustainability lab classroom designed to reach diverse and underserved populations to enhance middle and high schools’ science and technology curricula and inspire sustainable behaviors. This cutting-edge programming for Nashville public schools will create ongoing educational, mentoring, and relationship-building opportunities. The lab explores 5 important topics in sustainability: energy, water, green building, food & agriculture, and sustainable transportation. It challenges students to make everyday choices that save money, resources, and improve their quality of life. Developed in collaboration with teachers, school staff, and students, the mobile lab prevents the need to spend time, energy, and money on permission slips and school buses by bringing hands on activities directly to you. The lab connects classroom learning with real world applications, employing problem-based learning and interactive activities. As a service to our Nashville community, the mobile lab will be offered free of charge to Metro Nashville Public Middle and High Schools and will be available for a reasonable rate to private and home schools.

The Sustainability and Environmental Management Office (SEMO) at Vanderbilt regularly employs seven undergraduate students as student-workers for the year. These students work primarily with sustainability outreach and data entry for Vanderbilt’s annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory. In addition, 8-9 students are employed each semester to serve as recycling technicians, who regularly service residential recycling areas on campus. SEMO also hires an annual summer intern who focuses primarily on the recycling program at Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt also provides at least two internships to assist with the Urban Green Lab Mobile Lab. Vanderbilt partnered with the Urban Green Lab in 2015 on an EPA grant to develop a Mobile sustainability lab classroom designed to reach diverse and underserved populations to enhance middle and high schools’ science and technology curricula and inspire sustainable behaviors. This cutting-edge programming for Nashville public schools will create ongoing educational, mentoring, and relationship-building opportunities. The lab explores 5 important topics in sustainability: energy, water, green building, food & agriculture, and sustainable transportation. It challenges students to make everyday choices that save money, resources, and improve their quality of life. Developed in collaboration with teachers, school staff, and students, the mobile lab prevents the need to spend time, energy, and money on permission slips and school buses by bringing hands on activities directly to you. The lab connects classroom learning with real world applications, employing problem-based learning and interactive activities. As a service to our Nashville community, the mobile lab will be offered free of charge to Metro Nashville Public Middle and High Schools and will be available for a reasonable rate to private and home schools.

The Vanderbilt Walk Bike Coalition includes parties from across the campus to address issues facing bikers and pedestrians at Vanderbilt. They are focused on sustainability, health, and fun and tackle issues of safety and accessibility. The group acts to leverage resources and make connections for partnerships within Vanderbilt and in the Nashville Community.