Virginia Commonwealth University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

The VCU Rice Rivers Center, a part of VCU Life Sciences, supports scholarship and student instruction across diverse disciplines, including water resources, climate science, wildlife conservation and wetlands restoration.

Located midway between Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia along the historic James River, the center’s 360 acres of riparian marshes, tidal creeks and mature forests represent a unique outdoor laboratory for important applied research and innovative, experiential classes. The center’s modern facilities offer offices, classrooms, laboratories and overnight lodging for students, faculty, visiting scholars and community groups. State-of-the-art technologies are deployed onsite to collect information on air and water quality, fish and avian migrations, changing sea levels and a host of other critical data sources. Ongoing partnerships with state and federal natural resource and earth science agencies provide significant training opportunities for student scholars.

As part of VCU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, a student painted a mural on a VCU parking deck depicting the dangers of the urban heat island effect. This mural helps raise awareness for the dangers of infrastructure and building materials that absorb heat rather than reflect it through the use of a solar reflective coating on some portions of the mural and dark, heat absorbing paints on others. The cooler parts of the mural (as seen through an infrared camera) depict a more sustainable city and the solutions that can be used to achieve it. The student who created and painted the project was mentored by professors in the VCUarts school. In particular the student wanted to expand public knowledge of environmental risks, using multiple channels (art and science) to reach as diverse an audience as possible with her work.

URL: https://news.vcu.edu/article/2023/08/mural-by-vcuarts-student-reveals-the-invisible-danger-of-heat-island-effect

VCU Sustainability has partnered with VCU Environmental Studies faculty to establish a microgreens lab which focuses on sustainable indoor food production. The lab is open to all students, with no prerequisites required, and offers a one-credit course that is entirely student-run and overseen by the Learning Garden Coordinator and faculty lead.

Additionally, students in SCMA 410, Logistics and Distribution also completed a project on food security in Church Hill, the East End, and Charles City (areas of Richmond and its surrounding counties). According to the professor of the course, students helped to provide data and part of a business plan for the Market at 25th in Church Hill and the Promise Land Food Pantry in Charles City. Both businesses were established to help address issues that farms in Charles City and Church Hill have when trying to distribute their products to markets and consumers. The issues arise from a lack of infrastructure to meet the task of getting food out to people and there are a lot of farms competing in the same market. These issues lead to major food insecurity in these areas.

In Spring of 2023, as part of a Sustainability student intern educational project VCU students worked with VCU Sustainability to conduct a pollinator survey to measure pollinator abundance at a variety of plantings across campus. This information was used to test whether the presence of native species in plantings correlated with an increase in pollinator abundance. The results were then reviewed by sustainability staff and used by students in advocating for future native plantings on campus and for suggesting possible sites for planting.

As part of SCMA 420, Strategic Sourcing, Fall Semester, 2021, students created an analysis and report on current obstacles for small, woman and minority (SWaM) owned businesses becoming certified. The project was described by the professor of the course as follows: The path towards becoming a certified small, woman and minority (SWaM) owned business is costly and lengthy. Some of the requirements for the certification include a 3 year long certification process with additional costs from document gathering, labor in completing the certification, and possible fees. The process is overall quite daunting for many of these businesses. Furthermore, under the Virginia Public Procurement Act, state funded institutions with discretionary spending are required to use SWaM certified businesses, having one of the listed certifications, i.e. women, minority or small, can be a major competitive advantage and increase in profit for most of these businesses.

As a part of SCMA 410, Logistics and Distribution, students complete a project on the options and structure of ride share at VCU. The project is described as addressing the following concerns: Commuting to VCU has become an essential part of the academic experience for many students at VCU. However, the environmental impact of commuting is a growing concern on the university's drive to lower its carbon footprint to zero emissions. Utilizing alternative transportation options to get to campus has some noticeable advantages. In addition to being good for the environment, carpooling can reduce your commuting expenses. Alternative modes of transportation offered by VCU are intended to increase financial savings for students and staff, decrease the number of single-occupancy vehicles on campus, and lessen the need for parking.

VCU Sustainability’s student internship program included a zero waste intern starting in 2023. As part of the program, the student intern developed sustainability research and solutions for staff to help implement moving towards more sustainable waste practices at VCU. This internship culminates in a zero waste recommendation project made by the student that will be assessed by Sustainability staff.

As part of SCMA 491, Responsible Supply Chain Management, Spring Semester, 2023, students also completed a project on food waste at VCU. According to the professor of the course, the research and findings revolved around the campus’s main buffet located at the Shafer Court Dining Center, as it contributes more to food waste than any other dining service at VCU. The current dilemma is that there is an overproduction of food that comes from ineffective purchasing processes. In addition, the food that is wasted is not given to individuals or organizations that would benefit from the food. Data that resulted from the project was provided to the Environmental Issues working group for the One VCU Sustainability Plan.

The Urban Studies course URSP 515: Watershed Planning and Governance culminates in a student group project in which students examine watershed management for one of the nine major watersheds of the Chesapeake Bay. This semester-long group project provides an opportunity to not only gain in-depth knowledge about a nationally important watershed ecosystem, but also learn — through structured exercises/labs — how to collect and analyze data on water quality, quantity, movement and watershed land use, using various web tools and databases.

The Beyond Sustainability Design Sprint was a two week long, extra-curricular activity where student teams participated in a structured process to develop, plan and contextualize a proposal for transformations that take VCU “beyond sustainability.” In February of 2023, student teams mapped out ambitious ideas that addressed systemic roots of our campus unsustainability problems. With thematic foci that map onto the ONE VCU Sustainability plan’s core goals, the project was meant to both engage with VCU Sustainability’s planning, while demonstrating how our students can push us to consider even more creative, ambitious and innovative solutions. This was coordinated by the VCU Environmental Humanities Lab.
URL: https://humanitiescenter.vcu.edu/labs/environmental-humanities-lab/

Building on the Climate Psychology Association’s “Climate Cafe” project, the Climate Circle team, as part of the VCU Environmental Humanities Lab, is developing a version of the climate cafe specifically tailored for student-run spaces. These Climate Circles, offer a calm and safe environment for folks to share stories and process varying emotions such as climate grief, climate anxiety, and other related, hard-to-identify feelings around the climate crisis. Students can work with members of the Climate Circle team to learn how to host and facilitate their own climate circles through the program.