Living Lab

Living Lab

Advancing climate action by transforming the entire campus environment into a collaborative living laboratory for students, faculty, and staff.

Program Overview

UC Merced’s Living Laboratory Pilot Program offers a unique opportunity for students and UC Merced staff to boost campus efforts in achieving climate action goals. Partners are tasked with producing potential research, programming, and/or implementation of decarbonization[SG1]  projects within UC Merced’s Campus. The Living Lab provides real-world education and experience while advancing UC Merced’s rapidly growing sustainability efforts.

All ten campuses in the UC Consortium have Living Labs, 3 campuses are piloting new Living Lab projects and UC Merced is one of them. Living Labs are defined as utilizing the campus itself as an educational environment to learn. Living Labs have produced projects directly with students and/or faculty. These projects will improve practices of the campus community.

Strategic Objectives

  1. Elevate Experiential Learning - Provide hands-on opportunities that prepare students to lead in their career and give them knowledge of the Sustainability field

  2. Support Faculty Research & Innovation - Utilize campus infrastructure, systems, and data as a platform for interdisciplinary research while collaborating with industry leading faculty researchers

  3. Strengthen Campus Partnerships - Foster collaboration between academic programs and operational units. 

  4. Advance Climate & Carbon Goals - Support implementation of UC Merced’s climate commitments from the Climate Action Plan through applied, data-driven solutions

  • Living Lab Liaison: Sawani Goonatilleke, Will be facilitating and project managing between stakeholder groups from start to finish.
  • Student: Student who has proposed a Living Lab project and participated in the Living Lab coursework.
  • Staff/Faculty: Any UC Merced Faculty/Staff who agrees to participate and facilitate proposed project.
  • Partner Agency (optional): If projects do require an external partner to complete the project we can support this.

Priority Focus Areas

  1. Energy & Utilities
  2. Water Management 
  3. Waste Reduction & Circular Economy
  4. Sustainable Transportation
  5. Climate Action & Decarbonization
  6. Landscape & Biodiversity
  7. Equity & Community Engagement

 

Example Applications

  • Solar-Powered Golf Cart Pilot
  • Battery Workforce Challenge 
  • A Virtual Currency Framework for Equitable and Efficient Public EV Charging Access
  • Bee Campus and Beyond: Promoting Pollinators through education and Action
  • Distributed Water and Fertilizer Delivery for Minimizing Nitrogen Losses by Leaching and Volatilization
  • Investigating the impacts of dust particle sizes from fallowed agricultural lands on public health and regional climate in San Joaquin Valley

 

Institutional Value of the Living Lab

  • Enhancing student success through applied, career-relevant experiences
  • Expanding interdisciplinary research and external funding opportunities
  • Serves as a source of experiential learning to compliment coursework 
  • Contributing to UC Merced’s Social Mobility Ranking by encouraging student leadership within the Central Valley
  • Serves as a catalyst for student enrollment and faculty retention
  • Improving operational efficiency and reducing environmental impact

 

Inaugural Projects

Climate Literacy Study

Team Members

Faculty: Paul Almeida

Student: Justin Barnes PhD Candidate

Project: This study will explore the climate literacy of the students on campus. Utilizing various questions to explore the depth of knowledge possessed by students on the campus.

 

Sustainability Dashboard Capstone Project

Team Members

Faculty: Santosh Chandrasekar and Stefano Foresti

Students: I2G capstone student group comprised of 5 members

Project: A student-led capstone project focused on designing and implementing a campus sustainability dashboard to track, visualize, and communicate key performance metrics. This dashboard will contain many working parts, including: utility tracking, GHG emissions, buildings, reporting, climate justice, and an ARCgis interactive map.

 

Contact & Next Steps

Want to learn more, propose a project, or get involved?

Our Website

Contact the Office of Sustainability!

or Complete our Project Proposal Form

Assistant Director of Sustainability/Living Lab Liaison: Sawani Goonatilleke

Location: SRE 108, (209)504-9296, sawanigoonatilleke@ucmerced.edu