The Campus as a Living Lab program (CLL) held its second annual symposium to showcase student-led sustainability projects developed in collaboration with UCI departments at Middle Earth’s Dome of Stars on May 28. Roughly 80 people attended the event, including 17 student presenters.
The CLL program is a hybrid seminar and internship experience that spans over three quarters. Students apply what they learn to pressing environmental, social and economic issues. In their partnership with the UCI Dunlop School of Biological Sciences, interns receive academic units depending on how much time they can commit each quarter.
According to the program website, students partner with a UCI department to “improve the sustainability of campus operations, systems, and practices through applied projects.”
Upon entry, people were encouraged to complete evaluation forms after listening to each presentation and provide feedback on poster design, oral presentation and project site description, among other aspects. An event feedback form was also sent out after the symposium’s conclusion.
While a slideshow filtering through CLL intern profiles projected on one wall, attendees circled a loop of posters. Some individuals carried tiny succulents, which were offered alongside buttons and stickers by a handful of presenters.
The two-hour open forum featured poster presentations displaying CLL interns’ research and applied sustainability solutions across campus. Posters from UCI Bonnie Reiss Leading on Climate Fellows, sustainable student organizations and UCI Housing’s EarthRep Ambassadors were also present.
This year, participants were placed at one of eight sites — including UCI Dining, the ANTrepreneur Center, the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute and UCI Transportation. At their assigned site, interns worked one-on-one with a mentor to develop a sustainability project to implement throughout the year.
While this marks the program’s ninth year, the symposium was only founded last year by Sustainability Resource Center Director Garrett Hurley, Student Housing Sustainability Programs Manager Rachel Harvey and Academic Coordinator Chloe Selby.
“I would say that one of the main takeaways we got from the symposium in 2024 was that a lot of students that attended didn’t realize how many sustainability opportunities there are,” Selby, a fourth-year earth system science and environmental science and policy student, told New University.
Selby said the symposium was created to highlight CLL within the wider UCI community.
“We wanted the work that students are doing to be more well-known, as well as to encourage other UCI students to get involved in sustainability,” Selby said.
The program itself often attracts applicants by sending out department-wide emails, though many interns also apply through word of mouth.
CLL intern Jasper Berry, a second-year environmental science and policy student, was one of those students. He heard about the program through a previous intern who had a good experience. Berry worked at the UCI Greenhouse placement site, where he aimed to reduce resource use and promote sustainable practices.
Preparing for the symposium was somewhat difficult because he had to pull from a whole year of work, Berry said.
“The whole process of CLL kind of builds up to the poster,” Berry told New University. “So you always have it in the back of your mind.”
Madison Evans, a third-year environmental science and policy student minoring in urban studies, and Jennifer Moritaka, a second-year international studies and political science student, both applied to CLL after receiving an email regarding the internship.
They were assigned to the Little Ants Nature School, a program of UCI Housing open to UCI-affiliated families. Evans said their main goal was to teach kids about sustainability from a young age.
“So that they can be the future sustainability leaders because that’s very important, especially living in this world right now, in this current generation,” Evans told New University.
Alongside pictures depicting their work with children throughout the year, Evans and Moritaka’s poster listed their roles, a description of the site and project, lessons learned and acknowledgement of their mentor Erica Valdez.
While Moritaka said that presenting their work isn’t new for them — all interns are graded on presentations they show to their classmates at the end of the fall and winter quarters — the symposium is their final project. They not only received the opportunity to present their end-of-year gatherings and findings, but also to share them with the general public.
“We were scared,” Moritaka told New University. “We didn’t know what’s expected.”
Third-year earth system science student Samantha Decker also expressed her nerves and excitement about the symposium. She helped record food waste from The Anteatery and Brandywine with UCI Dining and hosted tabling events with educational games on Ring Road outside Zot N Go.
“I was also excited cause it’s kind of the final thing throughout our internship, like, we’ve worked up until this point; but I was also a little nervous because I was hoping that everything goes well and public speaking and things like that,” Decker told New University.
The Green Initiative Fund helped contribute to and promote the symposium, which was also pushed out through various department newsletters and on Instagram. Many attendees also heard about the symposium through volunteer and internship programs such as EarthReps and UCI College Corps.
Volunteering for EarthReps brought first-year environmental science and policy student Koda Torres to the event. She said that the symposium exposed her to the many ways in which students can become involved in sustainability on campus.
“I think there are so many different ways to get involved, and it’s not really gated by how many years you’ve been going here or anything like that,” Torres told New University. “Anybody can get involved as long as you have a passion and a goal.”
Selby echoed that anyone can be involved in sustainability, to any degree.
“Sustainability can be what you make of it, and you can integrate into whatever part of your life works,” Selby said. “I hope that this event showcases that students at UCI are making a difference in sustainability.”
Zoë Chang is a Features Intern for the spring 2025 quarter. She can be reached at zoeac@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon.