Beyond Benign

Promoting Science Literacy

The fundamental understanding of mixing blue and yellow to achieve green has been well grasped by Suffolk University.  Suffolk’s main campus is located in Boston, MA, with international campuses located in Madrid, Spain, and Senegal.  The school’s colors are gold (visualize yellow) and blue.  Mixing these two colors to achieve green is not just done by students at Suffolk’s renowned New England School of Art and Design (NESAD). Throughout the Boston campus, efforts to make their school and their community more sustainable emerge to capture the attention of their city and the rest of the world.

In April 2008, Suffolk University was awarded the Second Annual Green Business Award in the academic, cultural and healthcare institutions category.  This honor is given by the City of Boston to recognize Boston businesses for their leadership in sustainability.  At Suffolk, science, engineering, and government departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, along with the NESAD and the Sawyer School of Management all sport green hues as their endeavors for sustainability reach students, educators, and their community.

In the chemistry and biochemistry departments, lab courses have been revised so that greener practices are used.  Lesson plans in the biochemistry lab reduced the volume and concentration of buffer solution needed to perform biochemistry experiments.  This results in the use of a less concentrated acid in the preparation of the buffer.  In the organic chemistry lab curriculum, 50% of the entire coursework has been upgraded to replace non-green experiments with green ones.

One of Suffolk’s jewels is the Friedman Field Station (FSS) on Cobscook Bay, Maine.  Maintained by the biology department, the field station sits on 50 acres of wildlife land and provides a unique outdoor classroom setting for courses in field botany, ecology and marine biology.  Like the urban Boston campus, the FSS strives to be sustainable in every way possible.  From low energy practices to protecting wildlife land from development to supporting local Maine farmers, Suffolk’s extension into Maine is simple and sustainable.  In addition to the biology department, the Suffolk physics department and the environmental engineering program uses the FSS for some of their field studies and energy-related work.

One of the most notable accomplishments by physics and environmental engineering is the construction of a 14 ft diameter geodesic dome for heating water for the field station.   The dome captures solar energy from the sun and uses that energy to heat a 120 gallon water tank connected to the FSS dining hall.

Sustainable efforts have even reached outside of Suffolk’s campus through the venues of educational outreach, community service, and service learning.  The environmental engineering program has been instrumental in educational outreach programs for sustainability.  Topics such as green chemistry, green engineering, and green materials have been presented to elementary and middle school students.  Educational materials and books were prepared and distributed to the students and their teachers to ensure the commencement of sustainable education in the local community.  A recent project called “Green My House” features a scaled model of an environmentally friendly home.  Using green materials donated by various companies, Suffolk engineering, design, and science students constructed the model home as a teaching tool to show middle school students how they can green their homes.

Suffolk’s Organization for Uplifting Lives through Service (SOULS) is the university community service group.  The SOULS office has seen an emergence of community service projects that revolve around environmental issues.  Erica Mattison, Suffolk’s Boston campus sustainability coordinator, has also noticed an increased interest among the student body to become involved in their community and environment.  “Student interest in environmental stewardship has grown tremendously over the past couple of years, which has been demonstrated by the increasing requests to volunteer in sustainable projects, and the increase of student media attention to sustainable efforts via the campus newspaper, magazine, radio and television shows”, says Mattison.

In the government department, a course on environmental policy and politics integrates service learning into the curriculum.  Students take a hands-on approach on environmental issues such as engine idling, water conservation and biking in Boston.  “Through service learning projects, students network and collaborate with local companies to raise awareness about environmental issues and make a positive impact on their communities” says Erica Mattison, instructor of the course.  “That way, everyone benefits.  The students and the community benefit from civic engagements and building a sense of community.  And the school and companies benefit from new-found partnerships.”

Creative neurons fire at Suffolk’s business school where green business courses and awards for innovative products are offered.  Students are challenged to design green products that are environmentally safe and that minimize waste.  Their products can then be entered into contests such as the Suffolk University New Product Innovation Awards and the Urvashi Bhatia Green Awards.  A recent venture, these awards hope to draw more entries over the next few years and could lead to a Suffolk student’s next patentable invention.

At NESAD, benign materials such as soy-based inks and water-based technologies have replaced traditional more hazardous materials.  Paint containing potentially toxic pigments, as commonly found in acrylic paints, is carefully disposed of so that no trace of hazardous compounds can enter the waste water stream.  Aerosol sprays have been banned at NESAD eliminating the inhalation of hazardous compounds.

As these varied examples demonstrate, from its science departments to its business school, Suffolk shows just how easy the blue and yellow can be green!

Special thanks to Dr. Pat Hogan of Suffolk University’s Environmental Engineering Program for her aid in reviewing this article.