2021 MSWC Session 2 – Jesse Minor, University of Maine at Farmington

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

2021 MAINE SUSTAINABILITY & WATER CONFERENCE – 3/31/2021

Session 2 – Taking the Campus as a Service-Learning Partner for Environment and Sustainability Coursework

Jesse Minor
Dept. of Geography & Environmental Planning, University of Maine at Farmington

UMaine Farmington’s Fall 2020 semester placed limitations on university travel, including restrictions on how many students can ride in a 15-passenger van (2), as well as strict requirements for physical distancing and decreased capacity in classrooms. Course activities were limited to the UMF campus, eliminating previously-planned community-engaged service-learning projects. Instead, I taught Environmental Field Methods almost entirely outdoors, using campus as the classroom. To accommodate outdoor learning, I converted short in-class lectures to remotely-delivered online discussions, and took more time for hands-on practice with the field tools and data collection techniques. To replace the community service-learning partner, we worked in the campus environment on two parallel research projects. One project investigated the microclimate conditions and heat island effects in the brand-new UMF Campus Community Garden. The second research project estimated the carbon sequestered in the UMF campus forest. Students conducted plot- and transect-based measurements of forest structure and species composition. Allometric equations convert tree diameter measurements into standing biomass and carbon. These campus-based projects provided meaningful, real-world applications of environmental research methods, analysis, and reporting while simultaneously supporting campus sustainability efforts and initiatives. The UMF campus environment proved to be a robust outdoor classroom in which course-based objectives could be safely and efficiently conducted, while useful data on important elements of the campus environment could be collected.

For more information about the 2021 Maine & Sustainability & Water Conference, go to .