EFS Profiles
The Center for Sustainability
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania
Purpose: Curriculum Change, Greening the Campus, Sustainability Research
Please note that the copyright for this profile is retained by the institution.
Penn State's Center for Sustainability is an innovative, interdisciplinary program of collaborative research and instruction focusing on ecological design and environmental education. Founded in 1995, the Center is dedicated to the responsible stewardship of our rich but limited natural endowment. The Center is administered through the STS (Science, Technology, and Society) Department in the College of Engineering and offers courses such as "Projects in Sustainable Living" and "Permaculture Design" as well as workshops, and runs speakers series and conferences. The Center has an 8.5-acre Research and Demonstration Site for Ecological Technologies located on the University Park Campus. The site highlights green design principles and building techniques, alternative energy and alternative materials, sustainable agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. Other major projects include building a full scale Living Machine for applied research and education, the Healthy Foods Initiative, working with the Green Design Team and the NWF Campus Ecology Fellow at PSU, and environmental education outreach to local K-12 classrooms. The Center for Sustainability also maintains the Alternatives Library, which provides students, faculty, and the community with resources on sustainability issues.
Projects and Initiatives of the Center for Sustainability
1. Green Design Team
The concept is to assemble a team of faculty and students who share a sincere effort in developing "expertise" in a variety of areas of ecological "smart" design and in employing certain analytical tools for the purpose of decision-making, namely Ecological Footprint analysis, life-cycle analysis, and cost-benefit analysis. The Center's role will is to facilitate the coherence of this team, to help teach and apply these analytical tools, and to initiate an outreach program whereby the Green Design Team actually employs its skills to guide clients through decision-making processes relevant to our built and social environments -- including food production, choices of materials for construction, transportation and energy issues, wastewater treatment, "growth" issues in Centre County, and even working with developers in layout and design. The contact for this newly formed interdisciplinary student group is Erin English greendesignteam@hotmail.com. Their website can be viewed at www.psu.edu/dept/cs (click on the Green Design Team logo). Current Green Design Team Projects include running the 8th Annual Green Design Conference and building a living machine model with the Center for Sustainability as part of a NWF Campus Ecology Fellowship.
2. Living Machine
The Center has been funded by a DEP Growing Greener Grant to build a Living Machine for applied research, education, and extension outreach at the Center's 8.5 Acre Research and Demonstration Site for Ecological Technologies: Located near Beaver Stadium off Porter Road, the site showcases active and passive solar design, green building materials and techniques, composting, Biointensive organic agriculture, and native plant reintroduction. Living Machines employ complex ecosystems -- usually housed in open tanks -- which adapt to the waste stream fed to them to purify waste water. We are in the process of designing a Living Machine to treat the wastewater from the stadium on campus and aspire to test the viability of this technology for a variety of applications, including breaking down methyl-tertiary-butyl-ethylene (MTBE), the oxygenating compound in gasoline which is contaminating our drinking waters nationwide.
3. Annual Green Design Conference
Penn State's annual Green Design Conference is co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability, the Bowers Center for Excellence in Design and Construction of the Built Environment, and the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. This years' conference features a "Green Design Competition: From Spacestations to Earthships" that is open to students, faculty and the public. The five design categories are Architecture, Engineering, Art, Ecological Innovations, and Landscapes and Gardens. March has been chosen as Green Design Month at PSU. During the month the Center for Sustainability hosts weekly speakers in its Alternatives Library. For info go to www.psu.edu/dept/cs (click on the Conference Logo).
4. Water-based Hydrogen Fuel Cell Research
Because of the critical need to halt the production of greenhouse gases and nuclear waste, the Center for Sustainability is exploring the used of solar technologies and water-based fuel cells as the most ecologically viable energy-producing solutions. In water-based fuel cells, solar energy is used to separate the hydrogen and oxygen from water. The hydrogen recombines with oxygen in the fuel cell to generate power and recreate water, and is thus a zero-discharge, completely clean technology -- except for the manufacturing process of the fuel cell itself. Further research is required into methods for separating the components and storing them for use when the sun is not shining. We aspire to demonstrate and promote the use of this technology and to assess its cost-effectiveness and ecological impact relative to other energy-producing methods.
5. Earthen Architecture and Construction
Traditional earthen construction includes adobe, rammed earth, cob (sand-straw-clay), clay slip, and even plastered strawbale. Current projects at the Center focus on plastered strawbale and cob construction methods, but, following the lead of Pliny Fisk at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin, Texas, and the efforts of the United Nations, we would like to set up a soils engineering laboratory where we can experiment with the soils and materials that are abundant locally to explore their use as building materials. This project will be a collaborative effort initiated by Penn State graduate David Cervenka, who has spent time working with Pliny Fisk and has participated in earthen materials workshops, and we anticipate will draw from the expertise of faculty and students conducting materials research -- from soil microstructure studies to mechanical and civil engineering materials testing. At Pliny Fisk's recommendation, will be utilizing the Earth Construction Primer, by Hugo Houben and Hubert Guillaud (Centre de Recherche et d'Application Terre, Belgium, 1984) to set up this laboratory work. Ultimately we hope to develop useful local building materials and address building codes.
6. Passive Solar Roof
This project is our first experiment with passive solar design. We are actively seeking out the best in solar technology to test and demonstrate through a variety of projects at the Center's 8-acre site. The passive solar roof is a lightweight easy-to-implement roof addition, which acts as a thermosiphon, drawing in cool air at the base, heating it as it travels between transparent glazing and a black metal roof, and delivering very hot air at the top to a solar-powered fan which draws it down through insulated ducts into thermal storage. Dr. Tania Slawecki is supervising this project and has students and equipment lined up to test the efficiency of this simple system. Cost-benefit analysis, materials life-cycle analysis, and Ecological Footprint Analysis will be applied to this and all construction projects at the Center's site.
7. Bioshelter at Our 8-acre Site
A bioshelter is, effectively, a passive solar greenhouse with a complex plant/animal/insect ecosystem which negates the necessity for using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The only large-scale bioshelter in Pennsylvania is the Three Sisters Bioshelter in New Lebanon, PA, which was a project funded by the PA Energy Office. This very successful operation is not well-known, holds vast potential for local farmers, local food production, adaptation to new building development, and avenues for research into healthy food production and ecosystem management. The process for designing a bioshelter for Penn State will be lengthy as it will draw upon the outcome of other projects currently under way, including the fuel cell research, earthen construction research, Living Machine research and development of the expertise of a Green Design Team to guide its design at all stages. We anticipate a 4-year interdisciplinary, collaborative design process.
8. Biointensive Mini-farming at Our 8-acre Site
Initially developed by horticulturist Alan Chadwick, and furthered with 29 years of research by Systems Analyst John Jeavons of Ecology Action, Biointensive Mini-farming has proven the most effective method for small-scale, complete-diet ecologically-sustainable food production, to the best of our knowledge. It is being employed with great success in many Third World countries, and has proven effective in a wide range of climates and severe weather trials -- from producing citrus fruits in arid Kenya to holding plants in place through 52-hours of heavy rain in Honduras which washed away neighboring farms. Dr. Tania Slawecki teaches this method to students in the Projects in Sustainable Living class and upon request to student and public groups, and is overseeing the development of a "mini-farm" that will provide all of the food in a given year needed by two people. This project is already under way and has produced abundant, pest and disease-free foods enjoyed by students and used in the Healthy Foods Initiative. Many avenues for research into improved food-growing methods exist in this context.
9. Healthy Foods Initiative
This initiative focuses on the complete cycle, from growing healthy foods, preparing them in healthy ways according to state-of-the-art nutritional information, to composting all wastes in order to recycle the nutrients. Coupled with the Biointensive Mini-farm project, we have already begun to produce foods which students in the Projects in Sustainable Living can take home for their own use and also learn how to prepare in healthy ways to serve at our weekly Juice Bar (which is held as a fund-raiser to benefit the Alternatives Library in 118 Willard Building) or for the class. They are taught how to grow and prepare many non-mainstream foods, from dark leafy greens (collards, kale, mustards..., etc.) to tubers and grains like mangels, Jerusalem artichoke, amaranth and quinoa, to herbal sweeteners like Stevia, licorice root, and Sweet Cicely. Our goal is to reintroduce diversity into the mainstream diet and to promote healthier people through a healthier diet.
10. Composting and Soil Microbiology
The complexity and applications of compost is only beginning to be understood and revealed. The pioneering research conducted by Dr. Elaine Ingham at Oregon State University has demonstrated the critical need to better understand the soil foodweb and to research how to nurture the healthy organisms that combat disease and break down wastes: from powdery mildew and botrytis, to tires and other hydrocarbon-based materials. We have already begun small-scale organic composting at the Center for Sustainability's 8-acre site, and we have an interest in furthering research of this nature, addressing issues such as the effect of genetically-modified crops on organisms in compost, the selective "growth" of particular bacteria or protozoa for use in digesting toxic wastes or combatting diseases in plants and pathogens in humans, and to test its viability in breaking down numerous man-made materials. Many people come to the Center for Sustainability to learn about composting, and there are students in a variety of disciplines who are prepared to initiate this research project.
11. Course: Projects in Sustainable Living (STS 497/597 D)
This course is a hands-on interdisciplinary course offered year-round that introduces students to a broad range of sustainability concepts. The Center also runs special topics courses on Living Machines and Permaculture Design. The Sustainability and Regenerative Living course covers such topics as:
- Regenerative Agriculture and Healthy Food Production
- Ecological Building and Design
- Conflict Resolution, Healthy Community and Peace
- Holistic Health, Nutrition and Food Preparation/Preservation/Consumption
- Assessing our impact: Ecological Footprint Analysis
For additional information:
The Center for Sustainability at
Penn State
This document was last modified on 02/20/2002 10:43:02 AM
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