{"id":36,"date":"2023-07-24T02:22:35","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T02:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/?p=36"},"modified":"2023-07-24T02:22:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T02:22:35","slug":"week-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/2023\/07\/24\/week-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Greenhouse Project <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have fully shifted away from my original plan and moved into the ILC space plan. My goal now is to revive the space for ILC students to use for six months at a time, create a guide for students on writing greenhouse ILCs, how to “open” and “close” the greenhouse at the beginning and end of projects, frost dates for our region, an optional 20-week guide to follow, resources on learning how run a greenhouse, and instructions on how to locate and operate all the greenhouse equipment. I also hope to work with faculty members willing to sponsor these ILCs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My priority right now for the space itself is doing the full inventory of the space and fitting a new workbench. As far as the guide, I am working on curating resources on how to manage a greenhouse as well as temperature and growing updates for our region, writing example ILC project ideas that can be used in discussion with both students and faculty, and outlining the ILC writing guide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/object>Greenhouse-ILC-examples<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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<\/object>Greenhouse-ILC-writing-guide-draft-1<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thinking ahead I also need to create a checklist or a guide on what has to happen between projects, what needs to be checked for wear and tear and any seasonal set-up or take down that won’t be done by ILC students. We also need to consider what the proccess will looking like for applting to use that space, Daniel M. would probably prefer to not be in charge of that, so how do we manage key check out or multiple applications for the same quarter? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am going to do a few more weeks of research at the pace I have been going at, and then this will become a heavier focus as I create my final product for the quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Living Green Infrastructure Lab: Advancing Interdisciplinary Teaching and Experiential Learning in Landscape Architecture Pedagogy <\/strong>by Zhihan Tao, Galen Newman, Michael Armon, Ming-Han Li, and Jun-Hyn Kim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report details the process and results of a cross-college multi-disciplinary sustainability project that created a living lab on the Texas A&M University (TAMU) campus. As well as offering insight on the project itself, the paper also discusses cross-discipline collaboration and teaching pedagogies for similar projects, citing George D. Kuh’s quote \u201ccollaborative assignment and projects\u201d is considered one of the high-impact educational practices in higher education because it deepens one\u2019s own understanding by \u201clistening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

TAMU funded the formation of a research team that included faculty from other colleges, to ideate and propose a sustainable landscaping project that extended across multiple disciplines, programs, and colleges. The team proposed the creation of a rain garden, where both the design, implementation and future use and monitoring would provide cross-disciplinary education and cross-college collaboration. They identified previous issues with similar projects, citing insurance and quality control issues when students are installing such projects on communal or off campus buildings. A site was selected on the west side of the TAMU campus, described as “simply an open ditch that carried runoff from a parking lot into a nearby creek”, that had never been scheduled for any design projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus on rainwater collection is due to the droughts hitting Texas and the impact it has had on groundwater collection and local resoviours. Specifically, those working on design and planning had a focus on Low Impact Development (LID). LID is described as “an innovative approach treating stormwater at the source, using uniformly distributed facilities such as stormwater collection devices, filtering systems, and water reuse mechanisms”, but they note that most often designs for these systems stay in the hypothetical and don’t cross into further academic work. The goal of the project was to both create, install, and continually manage the rain garden for educational purposes, and to assess the learning outcomes of cross-disciplinary and experimental teaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 200 students across three main departments (landscape architecture, horticulture, civil engineering) worked on this project, with contributions coming from 22 programs. The main learning objectives for students in each department are listed in the chart below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the first phase of the project landscape and architecture students were introduced to LID designs, and used test sites and existing infrastructure to explore the design, management, and monitoring of such structures. The second phase students took their conceptual designs to a local community group in the same field to receive feedback on their work and to help problem-solve within current community waterworks using LID design work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the third phase landscape and horticulture teams collaborated to create the final design of the rain garden and the surrounding plants, and students learned about the contribution of plants on water systems. In the fourth phase, civil engineering students reviewed the designs and collaborated with the landscape students to design an additional structure, and the horticulture teams worked within the changed plan and the available plants to adjust their layout. The construction of the site followed, and the program was overall well received by students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results highlight the opportunities afforded to participating students that most architecture and design studios don’t allow. Working on a design project that was not just theoretical gave students the ability to learn about aspects of design thinking and implementation that are often left behind when they are isolated to the classroom. Not only was the ability to see the process from start to finish an identifying factor in these students’ work, but their ability to seek professional feedback and community collaboration also seemed to be a key factor in these students’ enjoyment and successful learning in these classes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main challenges of this project were identified as time and money. The project was originally timelines at three years, but avoidable and non-avoidable incidents extended them past the original timeline. Nessacary equipment damaged in Hurricane Harvey took a substantial about of money to fix, as well as the general installation costs themselves. It is unavoidable that a program like this is going to cost more money, how can it be pitched as an investment to the college overlords? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This project seems to have been overall quite successful despite the identified challenges, the writers also noted that students gained important exposure to career options in their field, as well as in other fields and where they may intersect, identifying the benefits in the social research process. I am curious to read more about the integration of cross-disciplinary collaboration in sustainability-based projects, and how the learnings of higher education correlate to post-college work. I would also be curious how the sense of place mentioned weeks prior plays into this project, being important to the eco\/social\/political context of Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also started reading “Campus as a Living Laboratory: Conservation Areas that Create a Community Who then Ensure Its Sustainability”<\/strong> by Charles W. Gunnels IV, Mary I. Abercrombie, Brian D. Bovard, Dean A. Croshaw, Jessica Drummond, Edwin M. Everham III, Taylor Hancock, John Herman, Mirielle Jackueux, Kara L. Lefevre, Jessica P. Marcolini, Vicki McConnell, Matthew Metcalf, Irma Linda Sanchez, Serge Thomas, Heather Walsh-Haney, and Mary Voytek. It is however denser and longer than I expected, so I will be continuing it through the week and summarizing it next week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Greenhouse Project I have fully shifted away from my original plan and moved into the ILC space plan. My goal now is to revive the space for ILC students to use for six months at a time, create a guide for students on writing greenhouse ILCs, how to “open” and “close” the greenhouse at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/thegreenhouseproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}