Ohio State hosts numerous sustainability living labs across its campuses. The projects listed below are intended to provide examples of different efforts led by faculty and students, with support and assistance from facilities staff.
Exemplar Living Labs
Sustainability Institute Supported Living Labs
Through seed or match funding, staff support or collaborative team building, the Sustainability Institute has supported the following projects, which are generally implemented and maintained by other units across the university or in the community.
The Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering's EnCORE House near Chadwick Lake was designed by students to achieve net-zero status through passive and active strategies maximizing energy efficiency.
The SUSTAINS Living Learning Community Container Garden living lab near Norton and Scott House on the Columbus campus is growing healthy food and providing education about food insecurity.
Knowlton School of Architecture faculty saw an underutilized patch of asphalt on Ackerman Road, and envisioned a more natural landscape that could serve as an outdoor learning environment.
Ohio State faculty member Ryan Winston is collaborating with university and external partners on two separate living labs studying different stormwater runoff interventions. One lab is on west campus and the other spans three different campus parking lots.
The Regenerative Farm at The Ohio State University at Lima is part of a large research project involving interdisciplinary faculty and staff within Ohio State studying regenerative agriculture processes.
The Microfarm Project started at The Ohio State University at Mansfield set out to make the business of sustainable urban farming accessible, equitable, and profitable by leveraging the knowledge and science at Ohio State.
Other Living Labs Across The Ohio State University
Different units throughout Ohio State have established living labs, including long-term managed properties that support numerous projects simultaneously.
The Knowlton School of Architecture’s Knowlton Hall houses a rooftop garden as a place of inspiration for sustainable architecture design. Knowlton Conservation Corps, a student organization, maintains the garden through invasive species removal and native plantings. The students have applied their learnings to other sites across Columbus.
Located at the Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory, the Ohio State Student Farm is a student-led project that provides hands-on education around sustainable food and farming systems. Student participants learn how to produce and market sustainable food and explore socially just farming.
Two student capstone project teams at The Ohio State University Mansfield identified and inventoried a section of the wooded campus for a maple syrup operation. Since then, the Ohio State Maple syrup operation has served as an ongoing research project.
Ohio State's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences manages numerous sites on the Columbus campus and across Ohio where active sustainability research, teaching, learning and outreach is occurring. This includes Stone Lab in Western Lake Erie, Chadwick Arboretum, Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory and the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, among others.
The Larry R. Yoder Prairie Learning Laboratory is a tall grass prairie restoration located at The Ohio State University at Marion. Since its start in 1976, the site has grown to more than 11 acres of restored tall grass prairie, serving as a showpiece on the campus and a learning site for students and community members.