What Is a Living Laboratory?
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Sustainability tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) recommends that universities use their campuses as a living laboratory.
This means that the university’s infrastructure and operations are used to foster multidisciplinary student learning and applied research that contributes to understanding campus sustainability challenges or advancing sustainability on campus.
Such efforts produce substantive work by students and/or faculty (e.g. class projects, thesis projects, term papers, published papers) that involve active and experiential learning. These efforts, in addition to immersive education programs, co-curricular activities, and community service, help to create an interconnected and holistic learning system on campus.
How Our Campus Acts as a Living Laboratory
Past Examples of How Our Campus Has Been a Living Laboratory
- Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. Student Transforms Vacant Lot with Help from Community
- From Carpooling to Lowering Meat Consumption, Students Look to Reduce Carbon Footprint
- Sustainability Projects Take Shape on Campus
- UMass Lowell Blooms into Certified Arboretum
- Students Measure Trees to Help Lowell with Climate Resilience Project
- Funding Plants the Seed for Innovative Sustainability Projects
- Hate Weeding? Engineering Student Helps Startup Devise Solution