OISE as Living Lab for Sustainability
Campus as a Living Lab (CLL) projects help to address sustainability issues on campus by connecting students, faculty, staff, and external partners. They work to create opportunities to use campus as a test bed for sustainability by connecting academic and operational activities.
Both CLL (on campus) and Community Engaged Learning (CEL; off campus) projects aim to provide opportunities for students to develop professional skills in relation to their fields of study. While CLL often connects to operational sustainability issues (like in a faculty of engineering or architecture), each faculty has its own area of expertise to bring to the CLL concept - at OISE, the focus is on the contributions of the field of education to shifting towards sustainability.
OISE’s Sustainability & Climate Action Plan aligns well with CLL objectives:
Create sustainable solutions - that are ecologically and socially sustainable, financially viable, and supportable in the long term;
Develop research, innovation, and collaboration opportunities;
Work on integrated solutions – focus on connections between physical systems (energy, water, material, food) and the well-being of our community;
Provide learning & engagement opportunities for students, staff and faculty
Advance knowledge of possible solutions for a sustainable future.
Examples of CLL projects at OISE:
- Research and development of OISE's Sustainability & Climate Action Plan
- Development of OISE's 2020 Climate Action Summit
- Creation of OISE's Teaching during a Climate Crisis Podcast
- Development of OISE’s Student, Staff & Faculty Sustainability Guides
- Creation of OISE's community-created Environmental Art Installations
- Founding and growth of OISE's Community Learning Garden
