Campus as a Living Lab (CLL) 2020-2021
Highlighted Projects
Campus Recreation Outdoor Adventures
Campus Recreation serves as an integral part of university life by offering diverse sports, recreational and fitness activities that are fun, vigorous, healthy and conducive to personal wellness. We support the academic mission by creating a climate that motivates individuals to embrace a healthy life-style, build social communities and develop leadership opportunities that contribute to anteater pride. Intenrns will develop and disseminate a campus wide leave no trace program to assist everyone familiar and unfamiliar with taking care of the outdoors so it can thrive. Interns will take the seven principles of “Leave No Trace” that already exist and bring them to everyone on the planet to help them understand that what they do matters to the environment now and in the future. Those principles have even been adapted to an urban environment; now, the challenge is to educate our peers and community so we get everyone rowing on the same boat!
Campus Physical and Environmental Planning
UCI Campus Physical & Environmental Planning is seeking a student to serve as their Green Labs Intern. The UCI Green Labs program works with principal investigators, lab managers, and students to educate and assist in the implementation of more sustainable practices in campus laboratories and help achieve Green Lab certification. The program provides resources and guidance in areas including energy efficiency, waste reduction, water conservation, sustainable purchasing, and green chemistry. Projects may include, but are not limited to the following: updating UCI Green Labs inventory and identifying/recruiting labs, assisting with the Green Lab Certification process (e.g., analyzing results of green lab assessments, identifying areas for program improvement, educating labs on more sustainable behavior practices and how to apply them to their research, and preparing certification materials), and updating educational and outreach materials (e.g., maintaining and updating the UCI Green Labs website, creating virtual resources for participating labs, producing a quarterly newsletter for labs, helping to communicate news and tips for improving lab sustainability, and assisting with the creation of quarterly workshops/informational sessions).
Facilities Management Sustainability & Recycling Department
Facilities Management takes pride in sustaining the daily operation, repair, and maintenance of UCI buildings and grounds. We also partner with our campus customers to accomplish alterations, improvements, and renovations of physical facilities. Interns will work on plastics or food waste. Plastics interns study the UC policy on plastics and work toward an educational campaign that focuses on reducing the use of plastics by all. Food waste interns take a deeper dive into UCI’s food waste program to see if we can find better food donation pathways. Interns explore diverting some of the food waste into animal feed instead of anaerobic digestion into power. These two positions work together to educate students and staff regarding the UCOP newly adopted policy on plastics as it relates to recycling, waste prevention and waste minimization.
FRESH Basic Needs Hub
The FRESH Basic Needs Hub is a student-initiated effort that promotes equitable access to basic needs through student empowerment, community collaboration, and institutional integration. The aim is to shift cultural consciousness towards understanding the fulfillment of basic needs, which include food and housing security – a guaranteed right for every person. The CLL intern will help develop a basic needs resource guide incorporating community resources and sustainable practices for UCI students.
Student Housing
Student Housing will integrate sustainability into business practices and educational programming to foster healthy environments, social justice and economic viability. Student Housing embraces its unique access to the campus community, with the goal of increasing environmental sustainability through education and agency of residents and employees throughout the department. There are several opportunities for interns through Student Housing. AV Garden interns support the food production in the Ants in your Plants Garden located in Arroyo Vista with the development of guides, logs, and data entry related to annual procedures such as planting, orchard, volunteer hours and participate on-site if possible. The VP Garden intern supports the food production in the Verano Place Garden, with an emphasis on the orchard, with the development of guides, logs, and data entry related to annual procedures such as planting, web management, etc. and participate on-site if possible. The Move Out Donation Drive intern supports the annual donation drive and related waste reduction/recycling effort with data entry and analysis related to zero waste, marketing and outreach, and logistics for drive. The Food Waste/Cooking intern creates and implements educational programming and conduct engaged research on food waste at UCI. The fellow engages on-campus residents in educational programs on composting and/or culinary skills for sustainability and helps with the creation and printing of the Student Sustainability Cookbook. Lastly, the Energy/Green Building intern assists with outreach and marketing related to energy conservation and green building and helps with the creation and launch of a social media campaign and/or video series about green building features for on-campus residents. The intern also supports the Green Room certification program.
Sustainability Resource Center
The SRC unleashes youth leadership for community resilience to a changing climate and cultivates a campus culture of sustainability. This pursuit informs our students’ academics, career choices, and ways of life. As the University of California steps up as a global force for climate resilience, the SRC enables UC Irvine students to shape this legacy. The SRC Research Intern assists the SRC in researching and responding to current topics such as wildfire resilience, environmental justice, COVID and public health as they relate to sustainability, drafts educational outreach posts, and maintains bibliographies.