Campus Living Lab: Creating a More Sustainable Campus by Designing, Building, and Monitoring Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI)

The interdisciplinary Campus Living Lab aims to create a green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) "living lab" on campus to expand student experiential learning, enhance research capacity, and create partnerships across disciplines to fill critical gaps in GSI design and ecological performance.

Recently funded the Provost Investment Fund, the effort is led by Laura Meredith and Vanessa Buzzard, of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Collaborators include Bo Yang and Kirk Dimond (College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture), Thomas Meixner (College of Science) and Grant McCormick (UArizona Department of Planning, Design and Construction).

Andrea Gerlak (Udall Center) is integrating aspects of the Living Lab project into her environmental policy and governance courses in the School of Geography, Development and Environment (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences). The larger efforts on campus around designing, building, and monitoring GSI on campus strengthens the long-standing work of the Udall Center, including earlier efforts at a local school and with city and local partners around the maintenance of GSI.