Each spring, students in a 300-level field course collect samples from urban community gardens to monitor soil lead concentrations.

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Hydrology students are asked to participate in a service-learning project that involves a long-term stream monitoring project. The strengths of this laboratory exercise are that it integrates classroom knowledge with fieldwork, as well as providing the students with a "reason" for doing the lab.

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Students characterize how climate change impacts natural hazards and pose research-based solutions to the county Emergency Management Agency. Presentations require the use of local data, created figures, and reliable sources. This activity builds from an assignment which has students identify and describe projected local climate trends using the USGS National Climate Change Viewer followed by Unit 1 and 2 of the Map Your Hazards InTeGrate Module.

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A wide range of environmental conditions are experienced while hiking the Grand Canyon.
Climate change is often presented in disconnection from human experiences central to equitable and just decision making. In this activity students use PocketLab temperature probes to collect and analyze data on campus or in a local park and describe the sources of variation. They then reflect on how climate decision making is improved by considering inequities in lived experiences such as lack of air conditioning in schools, lack of shelter during sustained heat or cold, or even the access people have to park spaces, or other outdoor environments that impact our enjoyment.

This climate justice activity was developed by collecting personal monitoring data at national parks, but has been tested in campus-urban environments. The activity can been extended by comparing personal experiences with meteorological station data and longer term climate averages.

Water conservation teams will perform a school water audit to determine how much water the school uses (indoors and outdoors), what activities and behaviors contribute to water loss and waste, and what changes could be enacted to conserve water at their school.

In this service learning project, students will collaborate in teams and with community partners to:

Collect data from existing sources such as past water bills, campus census data, and school facility maps
Measure school water use (indoors/outdoor) and make "field" observations by performing the 7-Step School Water Audit
Analyze data, formulate problem statements, and make recommendations for action plans to improve water efficiency
Create an extended abstract or poster for the project
Present the project to an authentic audience of students, teachers, school administrators, water supply entities and other community partners
Make real-world changes to conserve water

In this service learning project, students, teachers and community members will work together to design and construct a rainwater harvesting system for their school campus.

Research RWH design basics and local conditions
Explore how RWH could be used on your campus and develop a basic design.
Present findings and action plan to community partners, school administration and student body.
Enact the action plan to construct a RWH system on your campus and raise community awareness for water conservation

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The wastewater treatment plant in Hamilton, Ontario is unable to keep up with demand during heavy rainstorms. Combined sewage and stormwater lines in the oldest parts of the city trigger outflow of screened sewage directly into the harbour several times each year, after heavy rains. The harbour itself has been the focus of a remediation effort for several decades. Addressing both industrial legacy pollution and the municipal sewage problem is considered to be key to achieving the harbour's "delisting" as an area of concern in the Great Lake watershed.
This project requires students to help Hamilton residents reduce the pressure on the wastewater treatment plant by reducing the amount of water in the sewage system, the amount of water in the stormwater system or by ensuring that the water is relatively free of chemicals pollution. Some pharmaceuticals have been linked to a feminizing effect on the native fish in the harbour (Purdy, 2009). Students develop realistic strategies for residents to adopt and present their findings to a community partner, the Bay Area Restoration Council, involved with the remediation effort.
Students arrange themselves into groups of three or four during a regular lecture. Any students not present at that lecture will be assigned to a group by the instructor. The groups are then charged with writing and signing a contract detailing the responsibilities and consequences of the work. For example, groups may decide how many meetings may be missed and what happens if a member misses too many meetings. Typically, the most stringent consequence is that a member is removed from the group and must complete the assignment, on time, independently. There was one case of this last year.

The groups then sign up to conduct research into one of four different theme areas: grey water, stormwater, water waste in bathrooms and domestic chemicals. They then develop a strategy for an average household to reduce pressure on the wastewater treatment plant in one of these areas. The strategy must be economically feasible for most residents in the city. The groups meet with myself or a teaching assistant at least once during the project to talk about their plan.
The physical posters and electronic versions are all due on the same day and are then displayed in two separate "poster days." Students are given participation marks for giving feedback on notepads hung at each poster. Community partners form a panel of guest judges and talk to the students about their work, ask questions etc. The teaching assistants and I also visit each poster and ask questions. The guest judges award prizes to the best poster in each category (independent of any marks).
Last year, the best ten posters (judged by the guests and the instructors) were also invited to present their posters at the annual general meeting of the community partner. Members of the public circulated among the posters and talked to students about their work. Members of the press were also present. This annual meeting took place after the semester had ended. The plan for the next version of this project is to send the electronic files out to community partners so they can display them on their web pages or print them out and display them in offices, schools or other public places.

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This unit describes a general approach to guiding students to complete service-based engineering design projects, with specific examples provided in detail as associated activities. With your class, brainstorm ideas for engineering designs that benefit your community or a specific person in your community. Then, guided by the steps of the engineering design process, have students research to understand background science and math, meet their client to understand the problem, and create, test and improve prototype devices. Note that service-based projects often take more time to prepare, especially if you arrange for a real client. However, the authors notice that students of both genders and all ethnicities tend to respond with more enthusiasm and interest to altruistic projects.

Students will explore the environment around them and explore the ways in which their own actions can either help or harm the world. Students will collect information and then present the facts in the form of a presentation.

Students will produce a report for a local non-profit organization in which they will evaluate the effectiveness of vocational training in improving the labor market opportunities for non-college bound youths. The report will be used by the organization when applying for grants.

This project is designed to introduce students to a local hydrogeologic problem or issue of interest to the community. The project requires the students to learn about their local groundwater environment and apply principles and concepts that they learn in the classroom to an issue that is of concern to the public. This project provides a good introduction to "real world" problems that the students are likely to encounter as professionals. Students are required to synthesize information from a variety of sources and develop their own assessment of the problem and also to make recommendations based on their professional opinions.

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Service-Learning is a means of exploring sustainability and connecting experiential learning with academic study of the topic.

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A semester-long audio recording project, defined by the needs of a community organization, engages students in not only learning new content but sharing their new knowledge beyond classroom walls (and beyond the professor). This assignment, focusing on "engaged digital scholarship," challenges students to increase their information literacy and use of audio to effectively communicate scientific information for a general audience. This project has been embedded in several different introductory-level Earth science courses for non-science majors, with the resulting podcasts being shared with varied community groups. The example presented here focuses on students in a "Water: Science and Society" course generating podcasts that respond to specific content questions posed by Pennsylvania K-12 teachers, with the resulting podcasts posted on the website for the Pennsylvania Earth Science Teachers Association (PAESTA).

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Project Description (Microsoft Word 14kB Jan26 10)
Water collection and usage in the Sustainable SW Japanese Garden

The Albuquerque Water Authority has several activities on their web site to help with making a personal water audit, selecting xeriscape plants, designing garden areas as well as forms for rebates. We used the ABQ Water Authority design format to calculate which plants to install. Students start with a personal water audit and then move to the design of the garden.
Personal water audit http://www.abcwua.org/Understanding_Your_Bill.aspx
Techniques to consevere water outdoors http://www.abcwua.org/Save_Water_Outdoors.aspx
Planning Xeriscape - students create their own personal garden and we transfer the concepts to the Japanese Garden. We are looking at Japanese design elements with a SW flare and thereby modeling what the internees did when they were limited to the surrounding rock, vegetation and water collection. http://www.abcwua.org/Xeriscaping.aspx

Calculating roof area using a Google satellite image

We use a measurable square on the pathway for the scale and then we calculate the square feet of the roof area. A transparency is used to overlay the image and calculate the water harvest.

Calculating the capacity of the 1500 gallon cistern in terms of water needed per plant

Students experiment with buckets to see ascertain the best collection site. The water is measured after rainfalls and compared to the weather data collected by the NOAA.

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College students in an intermediate micro-economic theory class teach economic concepts to elementary school students.

The course was a senior-level 3 credit seminar designed primarily for junior and senior economics majors and minors. This capstone-type course offered an opportunity for 18 students to learn about urban economics as it applies to local economic development while being actively involved in the actual practice of community and economic development through a partnership with Burlington's innovative Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO). Specifically, Students conducted the following activities for CEDO's economic development division: 1. Collected data to enable an up-to-date understanding of economic/demographic trends and conditions in Burlington and the region. CEDO has previously hired outside consultants to periodically produce a data rich document titled "Jobs and People." My students put together "Jobs and People IV." Key contributions unique to J&P IV were the construction of time series based on NAICS instead of SIC industry codes and the addition of variables to reflect Burlington's movement away from manufacturing to an economy based more on the arts, technology and sustainable agriculture. This report is now used throughout the state of Vermont. 2. Developed a dataset in excel with formulas and sources that makes it easy for CEDO staff to keep "Jobs and People" continuously updated and to modify the data and charts to meet their changing needs. CEDO will now need to rely less on expensive outside consultants. Students conducted the following activities for CEDO's community development division: 1. Conducted a survey of Burlington residents on their quality of life in the historical but economically challenged Old North End neighborhood. The survey was also designed to gather information about the types of supports residents want and to identify the role played by CEDO sponsored neighborhood associations in resident perceptions of quality of life.

The Tippy Tap hand-washing station is an inexpensive and effective device used extensively in the developing world. One shortcoming of the homemade device is that it must be manually refilled with water and therefore is of limited use in high-traffic areas. In this activity, student teams design, prototype and test piping systems to transport water from a storage tank to an existing Tippy Tap hand-washing station, thereby creating a more efficient hand-washing station. Through this example service-learning engineering project, students learn basic fluid dynamic principles that are needed for creating efficient piping systems.

Students volunteer at any one of a variety of community agencies that serve low-income populations to better understand the underlying issues of poverty and income distribution in their community.