University of Idaho
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Madison Dougherty, a PhD candidate in the Environmental Science program, is working with the Office of Sustainability to develop a survey to assess the sustainability culture, literacy and commute modal split. This survey will be designed for longitudinal studies of Moscow campus faculty, staff and student responses to sustainability programs, initiatives and outreach. This survey will be used for our STARS reporting as well as informing future programming and projects that will address our campuses needs and priorities.

Several students in a Climate in Society course partnered with the Office of Sustainability to design action projects that addressed select content areas. One student project focused on interpreting data from the Cultural and Literacy surveys conducted in 2023 and analyzing the results.

The UI Confluence Lab, made up of faculty and graduate students, host Earth to Sky professional development workshops. Confluence Lab members organize and host professional development opportunities for educators on campus and around the state to learn about climate impacts such as wildfire and drought and consider pedagogy to address these difficult issues with students.

In 2021, Layal Alawi Hussain, a senior studying landscape architecture at the University of Idaho, was a featured undergraduate researcher who aims to help the Moscow community address climate change and increase walkability locally using data collected through surveys and GIS analysis.

Layal’s research is focused on the Palouse Mall parking lot and adjacent Highway 8,just off of the northern end of campus near the Soil Stewards Farm. According to Layal, GIS analysis of Moscow showed these locations radiated greater amounts of heat compared to other areas of town. Her research focuses on the Urban Heat Island Effect, where certain areas rise in temperature and become warmer than other areas due to human activity, which can have many effects on climate change, air and water quality and human health.

Through her design, Layal hopes to lessen the Urban Heat Island Effect and build a safer and more climate-friendly Moscow. She also wants to instill a sense of community in residents through education and planning while addressing a global climate crisis.

https://www.uidaho.edu/research/students/undergraduate-research/vandals-in-focus/2021/layal-hussain

In Fall 2023, students in Dr. Karen Hume's Climate Mitigation course will be working with the Office of Sustainability to create a Greenhouse Gas Inventory. This inventory will be used to inform operational projects that have the potential to advance our goal towards carbon neutrality by 2030. This partnership also has the potential to create a streamlined methodology for compiling annual Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

In 2021, as part of an introductory engineering course (ENGR 204), students were asked to work with local clients to investigate potential solutions for problems facing the community. Five students worked with the Sustainability Center to determine the viability of installing motion sensors for the lights in the Menard Law Library. The library was chosen because it is lit 24/7 to accommodate different study schedules. The students worked with partners on campus to acquire occupancy sensors and light output monitors and set them up throughout the first floor of the library. They also mapped the area and catalogue the light bulb types of each existing fixture.

Part of their project was to develop a methodology for determining the value of installing motion sensors on the lights in different rooms and buildings across campus. They were able to track occupancy patterns, measure light outputs, and identify fixtures that needed to be retrofitted for LED lighting. Using this methodology, this group was able to estimate cost savings, returns on investment and increases in energy efficiency. This procedure will allow for future student projects that will advance building efficiency.

In Spring 2021, two seniors in Ecology and Conservation Biology were awarded $2,200 to install Smart energy meters in 5 fraternity and sorority houses. These meters were used to host an energy use competition between the houses that aimed to incentivize the chapter houses to reduce their energy consumption. The result of the competition was to determine the viability of installing meters into on-campus residential buildings and the potential returns on investment the meters could produce through energy cost savings.

The energy meters were able to raise a consciousnesses for energy usage on a daily basis, as well as informed the participants what actions had measurable impacts on their house's energy consumption. One of the specific results of this competition was the behavioral change associated with energy use and laundry machines. The meters showed promising results, but the pandemic affected the results enough to require further investigation.

Daniel Temmen and Inna Popova are working on the Soil Stewards Farm to evaluating the effectiveness of mustard seed meal extract as effective weed control for organic potato farming in the Inland Pacific Northwest.

Organic farming often relies heavily on tillage to control weeds, but this practice depresses soil health by increasing soil compaction, increasingsoil erosion from wind and rain, and disrupting soil microbial communities.
Mustard seed meal has proven to be an effective herbicide with potential uses in organic farming but lacks practical application due to needing
large quantities to achieve biopesticidal concentrations.
By extracting the mustard seed meal into a more concentrated form, however, the extract becomes more logistically viable as an organic herbicide.

This study will evaluate the efficacy of mustard seed meal extract in weed
control within organic potato farming. Mustard seed meals have also shown to enhance soil health, so this study will also evaluate the effect of the extract on soil health as well as on the nutritional quality of the potatoes produced.

In the Fall 2021 semester, an undergraduate student worked with Dr. Grant Harley to map every tree on the Moscow campus. This student, Jon Asker, collected information on clade and diameter of the trunk for each tree and input the data into a geodatabase in GIS software. As the research continues into the Spring 2022 semester, the goal is to map all tress on campus as gymnosperm or angiosperm, record their size, calculate carbon stores, do a general spatial analysis, and make it such that the inventory can be re-measured in subsequent years to calculate any changes to any of the collected metrics.

Jon completed the entire campus (except arboreta), which includes 700+ trees.

Jon's work will be used to inform future Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

Several students in a Climate in Society course partnered with the Office of Sustainability to design action projects that addressed select content areas. One student project focused on assisting the Environmental Horticulturist with creating a volunteer opportunity to plant a new native pollinator garden on campus.

In 2021, a senior worked with several university entities to create a Sustainable Purchasing policy for the University of Idaho. Grace McGreevy, the Projects and Grants Coordinator for the Student Sustainability Cooperative, began working with staff in Contracts and Purchasing Services to complete a Sustainable Purchasing Policy that individual offices and departments across campus can access for guidance on waste minimization, reusing materials, and responsibly sourcing new supplies and furniture.

This project allowed us to gage interest in sustainability on a departmental level, as well as served as a comprehensive resource for sustainable office supplies and best practices.

Grace completed this resource to empower and educate individual units on the impact each can have on campus sustainability and prove that sustainable alternatives can still be cost effective.

The next step for this project is to implement a similar policy at a university-wide level.

Several students in a Climate in Society course partnered with the Office of Sustainability to design action projects that addressed select content areas. One student project focused on using commuter data collected through a campus-wide survey to better constrain the primary modes of transportation, commute distance and commute frequency of students and employees. The student then used these findings to contribute to the Scope 3 emissions section of the next Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

As the university ramped up efforts to reestablish a campus-wide recycling program, we sought out various methods to limit contamination. In Fall 2022, as part of a continuing partnership between the Student Sustainability Cooperative (SSC) and an introductory engineering course (ENGR 204), students were asked to work with local clients to investigate potential solutions for problems facing the community. Four students worked with the SSC to run a comparative study to determine the effect of adding lids to recycling bins on contamination rates in the Engineering Building. Student designed AB testing between two floors of the Engineering Building, one floor with lidded bins and one floor without, and sorted through the contents after 1 week. They weighed the total waste collected and the total contaminated materials to determine a percentage of contamination by weight. The project found that the lidded bins had less contamination by weight. This study contributed to the decision to purchase lids for the campus-wide recycling program.

Several students in a Climate in Society course partnered with the Office of Sustainability to design action projects that addressed select content areas. One student project focused on creating educational content for the kitchen staff regarding proper composting practices. This training will be crucial to the success of our anticipated composting program.

Student Daniel Baldwin and advisor Dr. Robert Heinse are working on the Soil Stewards Farm to understand water use efficiency for small plot
organic operations in the Palouse.

As local growers look to capitalize on the premium organic produce is being
purchased for in local farmer’s markets and food co‐ops, an interest is
building for establishing acre‐sized vegetable farms in lieu of traditional
cropland or pasture.

Due to dryland irrigation being the method for virtually
all crops produced in the Palouse region, little is known about water
application rates for irrigated row crops. It is the intent of this study to
evaluate several soil physical properties, such as electrical conductivity
and infiltration, while recording varying water application rates in
comparison to crop yield. Additionally, because the footprint of the Soil
Stewards Farm has seen multiple uses, this study may also provide insight on
how to manage urban agricultural operations.

Find more information here: https://www.uidaho.edu/cals/soil-stewards-farm/research

In Spring 2023, graduate students of the Idaho Tree Ring Lab, Nick Koenig, Ellen Bergan, Richie Thaxton and Kate Brings, were awarded $6,198.60 to create a free multidisciplinary field week to expose and immerse undergraduate students from historically excluded groups in tree ring science (dendrochronology) research and outdoor adventures.

A group of 16 students traveled from the Moscow campus to the McCall Outdoor Science School during the Spring Break 2023; the trip sparked generative conversations and workshops surrounding topics such as climate change, printmaking, anti-oppression, indigenous scholarship, illustration techniques, research design and execution, fieldwork practices and tree ring science.

In Fall 2022, Saloni Khetan, Director of Sustainability for the Associated Student University of Idaho (ASUI), was awarded $3,550 through the SSC's Sustainable Initiative Fund for her Menstrual Cup Project, an effort to make sustainable menstrual products accessible to the campus community.

Representatives from ASUI went to different living groups on campus including Greek Chapters and the Residence Halls to distribute over 300 cups and provide education about how to use the cups and why the reusable options are more accessible, less expensive and less wasteful.

ASUI also held tabling events in the Idaho Student Union Building to give out menstrual cups to students. The remaining cups were placed on a shelf in the Vandal Food Pantry for anyone who may need them.

Air & Climate:
https://www.uidaho.edu/research/students/undergraduate-research/vandals-in-focus/2021/layal-hussain
Grounds: Dr. Grant Harley, Faculty, Geography and Geological Sciences
Remaining sections: Olivia Wiebe, Sustainability Manager; Office of the President