Temple University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

In fall of 2018, the Research Methods class in the School of Architecture were challenged to identify ways to descrease Temple's carbon emissions. The students chose to focus on how create a more Bike Friendly Temple in order to encourage students, faculty and staff to choose a low carbon mode of transportation.

In fall of 2018, the Facilities Management Design Foundation class was challenged to help the University achieve a carbon neutral Temple. The group investigated ways to drive down emissions in operations and made suggestions on how to reduce impact through renewable energy and efficiency measures.

The Office of Sustainability hosts regular tours of the Tiny House. The Tiny House is a passive house and provides several examples of how a building can function with out the use of energy from the grid.

In spring 2018, the Office of Sustainability worked with the Fox School of Business to identify ways that they could minimize waste at the student run Saxby's.

Temple university is located in the Atlantic Coast flyway for bird migrations. As birds migrate, they collide with a number of buildings with glass facades on campus. The Office of Sustainability has funded student research to investigate ways students can mitigate bird collisions on campus. In fall 2014, students from a course in the Tyler School of Art conducted counts of bird collisions with the Architecture and Art buildings. The students mapped the collisions, and documented the deaths with photographs. In response to their findings, students developed an art show of the maps, the photographs, and renderings of how the building could be adapted to prevent bird collisions. The students also encouraged other students to brainstorm ideas by placing a white board for students to share their ideas/suggestions. This project helped keep bird collisions on the radar of the administration. In fall of 2015, the university installed additional bird film on Gladfelter and Ritter halls. A graduate student in Tyler school of art continued the bird collision mitigation efforts in fall of 2016 by working with the Office of Sustainability, the Philadelphia Zoo, and Audubon to develop on campus programming celebrating the lives of birds and bird habitat on campus. The month long programming included a documentary on birds, a bird habitat tour of campus, citizen science of bird spotting on campus and a bird mapping exercise at the Digital Scholarship Center.

In Spring 2015, students enrolled in a Fox School of Business Independent Study and worked with the Office of Sustainability to open a student-run co-op cafe that serves only local, organic and fair trade vegetarian and vegan food on campus. The students developed a sustainable sourcing policy that guides the cafe's purchasing patterns. Through managing the cafe operations, the students learned about the importance of supply chain management, sourcing challenges and the triple bottom line. This project is continued to operate through the 2018/2019 academic year with student leadership in the cafe's sourcing. The Rad Dish has also held numerous events raising awareness about local producers, including a "Know Your Roaster" event.

In the spring of 2018 students in a Sustainable Market class where challenged to raise awareness of key intitiatives run by the Office of Sustainability. One challenge that we outlined was how we could better market Bike Temple programming to the campus community.

In fall 18 students in a Sustainable Environment class presented ideas on how Temple students could support the City of Philadelphia's Zero Waste and Litter plan. One of the ideas, Owls on the Block, was executed in the Fall 2019.

In fall 2018 the Office of Sustainability worked with Landscape Architecture students to address issues of water use. The course focused on Green vs. Gray water. The challenge the students were presented with was looking at different systems (Temple Thrift, Temple Community Garden, and Recycling) to understand how and if gray water could be used in these systems instead of potable water.

n FY17 and FY18, Temple began work on updating its Climate Action Plan and developing a climate resiliency component of the plan for the first time. As part of the plan development, the Office of Sustainability enlisted the Sustainable Cities course to develop recommendations for what a resilient Temple could look like. The format of the course took the course of several group projects that identified climate vulnerabilities and made recommendations of adaptation strategies. The class provided the report to the Climate Leadership Working Group's resiliency subcommittee for consideration and background information used for the new resiliency component of the university's Climate Action Plan. The plan was formally adopted in April 2019.

All new students are educated about food insecurity on campus on the resources that are available to them. One such resource is the Cherry Pantry which provides food and personal hygiene products for students in need.

In the spring of 2019 members of the class Dissent in America help a Recycling Town Hall to discuss the changes in the recycling market and how students could change behaviors as a result to these challenges.

In fall 2018, a senior design class in the College of Engineering was challenged to find a way to recycle plastic from 3D printers. With the proliferation of 3D printers on campus the campus is challenged to manage this new waste stream. The students designed a plastic shredder for the plastic remnants that is currently being utilized in several 3D labs on campus.

In spring 2019, the Office of Sustainability supported a dance seminar for World Water Day.