Sustainability Challenge Grants 2023 Funded Projects

Since its inception in 2014, the UK Urban Forest Initiative (UFI) has cultivated a dynamic network of collaborators, professionals, practitioners, K12-college students, and community members with a dedicated interest in urban and community forestry across the state of Kentucky. From its roots at the University of Kentucky, UFI has expanded through interdisciplinary collaboration with faculty, staff, and students and has begun to embed itself across the state via partnerships with municipalities, higher education institutions, and the UK Cooperative Extension Service. Much of the historical success of UFI and the proliferation of its mission has relied on the strengths of relationships built through ongoing projects, which generate a consistent and reliable foundation for creative, meaningful, and impactful engagement on the frontlines of urban and community forestry efforts.

To continue investment in these synergies and forge new connections across an increasingly diverse stakeholder group, UFI is proposing to develop and host an urban and community forestry (UCF) conference, titled Canopy Con, in the spring of 2024. As proposed, Canopy Con would be a single-day, double feature consisting of a daytime conference and evening public talk. The conference portion will offer registered attendees an educational and experiential program with presentations, panel discussions, and field activities on topics that relate back to the value and practice of community forestry at various scales. The evening seminar will present both conference attendees and members of the public with an opportunity to hear from a well-known ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, urban dendrologist, podcaster, and social media personality, Casey Clapp. Mr. Clapp’s podcast, Completely Arbortrary, uses engaging h mor and storytelling to offer the audience a blend of facts and narratives about trees to communicate their value and the relationships that humans share with them each day. Mr. Clapp speaks about trees and arboriculture in an engaging, relatable, and accessible manner that proves effective and meaningful to a broader audience.

Team: Dr. Lynne Rieske-Kinney, Professor, Department of Entomology; Dr. Lynn Phillips, Associate Professor, Department of Geography; Grace Coy, Urban Forest Initiative Coordinator, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources; Shelby Grow, Urban Forest Initiative Outreach Coordinator, Department of Landscape Architecture
 

Documenting Change - Phase I looked at the Gray Design Building (GDB) before renovation and as the construction process began. As the construction process continues, Documenting Change - Phase II continues the effort of documentation and web publication including photos, LiDAR, and helmet cam videos provided by the construction team that will be stored in our archive, as well as new learning modules and articles. What is new this year is our examination of transition as we prepare to move from our current environments to our new shared home and examining the new spaces with an eye toward design intent. What drives this Year 2 proposal is finding new ways to disseminate the information we have already gathered and examining this sustainable project through the lenses of many different specialties.

Team: SK O'Brien, Assistant Professor, Department of Product Design; Joe Brewer, Director of Technology and Facilities, College of Design; Carolina Segura Bell, Senior Lecturer, Department of Landscape Architecture; Ryan Hargrove, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture; Jordan S. Hines, Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture; Daniel Livingston, Principle Graphic Designer, College of Design; Jordan Phemister, Lecturer, Department of Landscape Architecture

This project aims to further the contributions of the Kentucky Climate Consortium (KYCC) to inspire and support transdisciplinary climate research and teaching in Kentucky higher education. The KYCC is a multidisciplinary network of climate researchers and teachers in higher education across Kentucky. The PI for this project, Dr. Cagle, co-founded the KYCC in 2019 with Dr. Carmen Agouridis (University of Kentucky, Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering), and Dr. Cagle has served as Director since 2020. Project Team Members Dr. Alice Turkington, Dr. Yoko Kusunose, Dr. Mary Arthur, and Ryan McCoy are active KYCC members as well as climate-engaged researchers and teachers at UK. For the past four years, the KYCC has relied almost entirely on volunteer labor. We’ve benefitted enormously the last two years from funding for an intern through the Student Sustainability Council and the Office of Sustainability, but all other work has been uncompensated. In order to increase the KYCC’s capacity, particularly to support undergraduate research and learning, this project proposes to use Sustainability Challenge Grant funding to:

1. Establish an organizational structure for the KYCC by convening an Executive Committee, creating by-laws, and drafting a long-term organizational plan delineating the KYCC’s formal relationship with UK and other institutions of higher education.
2. Create a resource-rich website for the KYCC.
3. Hold an Annual Seminar with a keynote, field trip, research poster session, and teaching and learning exchange that increases student, faculty, staff, and other Kentucky stakeholders’ awareness of and engagement with climate-related research and teaching in the Commonwealth.

Team: Lauren E. Cagle, Associate Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, Incoming Director, Department of Environmental and Sustainability Studies; Mary Arthur, Professor Emeritus, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources; Yoko Kusunose, Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics; Ryan McCoy, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Philosophy; Alice Turkington, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Academic Ombud

The project described in this proposal will continue a suite of activities that include education and engagement, design, transformation of selected landscapes, and research assessing human and environmental benefits. While the original project focused on a plan for pilot project design and implementation, this grant proposal is for two intertwined activities that will extend the effort begun in the first challenge grant funded project. One group of activities is concentrated on the continued design and implementation of planting to create a more visually and experientially enveloping nature-infused landscape at the Markey Cancer Center. The second group of activities will develop a design guidelines document that can provide metric-based design guidance for infusing nature into future development on UK’s medical campus.

Team: Therese Bocklage, Professor and Vice Chair for Education, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Stacy Borden, UK Grounds Manager; Gregory Davis, Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Maureen Dreckman, Acting Facilities Planning Manager, Campus Planning Department; Rick Durham, Extension Professor and Faculty Advisor to the UK Horticulture Club, Department of Horticulture; Shari Dutton, Staff Horticulturist, Department of Horticulture; Connie Jennings, MD Medical Director Integrative Medicine and Health; Jonathan Larson, Assistant Extension Professor, Department of Entomology; Jordan Phemister, Lecturer, Department of Landscape Architecture; Christopher Sass, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture

Trees on the University of Kentucky Campus are cataloged and maintained by an Arborist working directly for UK PPD, Grounds. In the past trees removed due to disease or construction on campus were ground up for mulch. In 2020 Coca Cola provided a grant for the purchase of a Lucas Sawmill. The mill is used to produce lumber for academic use by students and faculty. The initiative is called Campus Wood. We have been able to use lumber produced by the mill on several large-scale projects including a pavilion to house the sawmill. Use of the campus wood is limited, however, due to the fact that the wood is "green" and therefore unstable. If used green the wood will shrink and cause finishing issues. To fully utilize the wood for furniture and smaller scale projects the wood needs to be dry to a 7-8% moisture content. To achieve this, we need a kiln.

Acquisition of a kiln allows campus wood to be used in a range of student projects making the sustainable use of our campus trees and wood an integral part of the student experience. Through low-cost access and use, design students will begin to understand the many positive attributes and environmental benefits of using local wood relative to less sustainable building products. We can reduce transportation of campus wood by drying on site thus decarbonizing campus operations while also having a use for all material contributing to a zero- waste campus. 

Team: Bruce Swetnam, Professor, College of Design, bruce.swetnam@uky.edu; Chad Niman, Primary Forest Products Specialist, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, chad.niman@uky.edu 

Electronic waste (e-waste) generation is one of the major problems posing significant environmental and health risks. The Digital Product Passport (DPP), a concept introduced by the European Union (EU), can serve as a potential tool to enhance the ability to monitor electronic products over their total lifecycle, minimize e-waste generation and facilitate better e-waste management. The UK iPad Initiative (managed by the Smart Campus Program-SCP), launched in 2019 with the goal of making UK an innovative campus in technology use, now has a total of 26,054 iPad kits distributed among the undergraduate student population.

Availability of information such as iPad battery life, best use practices, repair and maintenance options, etc., and educating students about sustainability-aware iPad use, based on information gathered, can help make more sustainability-informed decisions when using the iPad kits. A Digital ‘iPad’ Product Passport (DiPP) for the UK iPads (UK-DiPP) to gather and share iPad lifecycle data (in compliance with any privacy and data protection needs), with students and other relevant stakeholders on and off campus, can significantly increase the sustainable use of the kits, better manage e-waste generated as a result of the iPad Initiative, and reduce the overall negative environmental impacts through their use. Such a capability can enable making UK an exemplary institution in both launching and the sustainable management of the iPad Initiative.

Team: Fazleena Badurdeen, Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Core Faculty, Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing; Edward Wang, Assistant Professor, Departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Core Faculty, Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing; Junwon Ko, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering