Welcome to Chesapeake College Living Lab Website

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The overarching goal of the Chesapeake College Living Lab is to use the Chesapeake College campus as a living laboratory for the study of our local environment. The sustainability and restoration efforts on campus makes our college unique among peer institutions. Using those sites as extensions of the classroom yields a great opportunity to enhance student learning as we bridge our campus sustainability projects with our curricula. The Regenerative Step Pool Storm Conveyance and Stream Restoration site, Bioretention areas, Pollinator Meadow, and Bioswales on campus afford students with a unique learning opportunity.

As part of the Chesapeake College Living Lab project, the Sustainability Academic Group has seen to the deployment of wildlife and environmental monitoring equipment on campus near the Regenerative Step Pool Storm Conveyance and Stream Restoration site. The installation of wildlife and environmental monitoring equipment provides students with the opportunity to collect, analyze, collate, and manage diverse datasets. It also introduces students to new technology and computer software used in scientific research.

The data collected by the students will be curated into a long-term record of biodiversity and environmental conditions on campus. Students will be to learn how wildlife and the ecosystem respond to sustainability and restoration efforts on campus. Additionally, establishing the campus as a living laboratory yields multiple opportunities for us to develop collaborative projects across disciplines and form partnerships with other groups and organizations in the community.

We are using a variety of equipment in the Living Lab. Bioacoustic recorders are being used to record the calls of bats, birds, and amphibians. To date, we have detected most of Maryland’s ten native bat species. Two trail cameras are used, which have photographed and videoed a number of White-tail Deer and other animals. One of the most conspicuous pieces of equipment that has been deployed is the Hobo Logger Micro-station that is recording temperature, relative humidity, solar intensity, soil moisture, wind speed/direction, and rainfall.