A new resource managed by the Office of Sustainability increases potential for collaboration and continuation of work on student sustainability-related projects.
A new online resource is now available to highlight and inspire student work that relates to sustainability.
The Sustainability Project Database showcases student work while serving as a repository and inspiration for new or more in depth projects and to facilitate completion of or improvement on projects from year to year.
“We’ve seen that students tend to research and propose the same types of sustainability projects year after year. Our hope with the database is that rather than ‘recreating the wheel’ students will build upon previous student efforts to create more in depth projects,” said Jessica Bilecki, education and outreach coordinator in the university’s Office of Sustainability. “And if the project is related to sustainability at Elon, there is a better chance the student research will be applied to improving campus sustainability, making classwork that much more meaningful.”
Projects can address one or more aspects of sustainability: environmental, social and/or economic. They can focus on campus, the local area or sustainability on a broader scale. Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to submit sustainability project ideas to the database, and students are invited to mine the database for project ideas, which include the name and contact information of potential advisers.
“I hope to inspire other students who are intellectually curious and who desire to tackle research questions that pertain to environmental public policy and/or climate change,” said Elon senior Shannon Temlak, who submitted her Elon College Fellow thesis to the database. “It is my hope that students, faculty and staff will use this database as a resource as they pursue their own paths of inquiry.”
The database was developed by a senior Information Science capstone course for the Office of Sustainability. “We wanted a tool to collect and promote the great sustainability-related work students are doing,” said Elaine Durr, director of sustainability at Elon.
To submit a project or project idea to the database, students, faculty or staff can log in with an Elon username and password to access the entry form. The submission process takes less than 10 minutes.