Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education

July 10, 2015

STARS Steering Committee

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education

2401 Walnut Street

Suite 102

Philadelphia, PA 19103

To Whom It May Concern:

I am pleased to submit this letter of affirmation that the information presented for Lehigh University’s STARS Innovation credit is complete and accurate to the best of my knowledge. This letter affirms that Lehigh’s Mountaintop Initiative has created an experiential learning opportunity for students that intends to stimulate learning and growth in participants, lead to insight, and enable action in a complex and changing world.

Inside a former Bethlehem Steel research facility atop South Mountain, Lehigh is creating a vibrant and unique learning environment—a space in which students are given the freedom to pursue answers to open-ended questions while working in, and across, all disciplines. In the process, the students and their faculty mentors are challenged to increase their capacities for independent inquiry, for taking intellectual risks and learning from failures, for collaboration, for recognizing important problems and opportunities to effect constructive and sustainable change. Examples of projects include:

• Extra-Terrestrial Greenhouses: Students will take on the problem, identified by NASA, of creating an agricultural system that can be maintained in extreme conditions with as few supplies as possible. Challenges include amenability of plants to grow in micro-gravity, maintenance of suitable atmospheric pressures, scarce or diminished intensity light, and protection from radiation. This inherently interdisciplinary challenge is an opportunity for a fresh look at means for providing a sustainable food supply for space travelers.
• Adapting 3D Ocean Farming for Vulnerable Warm Water Coastlines: 3D Ocean Farming, also known as Vertical Ocean Farming, has been implemented to date only in colder climates (New England, Ireland, Japan). Targeting the ecologically sensitive Louisiana coast, the team will work to adapt the approach to warmer and frequently rougher (hurricane-susceptible) waters. The team’s starting is based on work done in SDEV 210 during the Spring semester of 2015.
• Sustainable Building in Senegal: In the last ten years there has been focus on works of sustainable architecture in developing countries. Many of these projects have made innovative use of advanced design tools (such as parametric and analytic computing programs) in combination with vernacular materials to advance the quality of individual buildings. In lieu of a particular building, this project looks to develop a similar high-tech / low-tech approach to specific building components (blocks, roofs, windows, doors, structure) in the specific context of West Africa. The goal is to develop these components such that they can provide markedly improved environmental performance - and subsequent occupant experience - within the economic and labor constraints that drive construction.
• Hip Hop and Entrepreneurship: The intersection of Hip Hop culture and entrepreneurship is notable in part for the dual purpose of ventures that have been created, having both conventional business and specific cultural goals. With software in particular, products have created new channels for content creation and dissemination. An interdisciplinary team of students will explore this cultural and market space, with intent to develop a minimal viable product of their own conception. Inspiration includes Tahi Hemphill’s Rap Research Lab whose lyrics database has catalyzed other work, the Rap Genius products which allows communal annotation and interpretation of lyrics, and the nonprofit Code 2040 that creates professional pathways especially for Blacks and Latino/as.
• Biomanufacturing- A New Paradigm in Functional Materials Synthesis for Sustainable Energy:While advances in nanotechnology have driven incredible new insights and creativity, this scaling challenge is increasingly recognized, as evidenced by the recent DARPA call “Atoms to Product: Aiming to make Nanoscale Benefits Life-Sized”. Current chemical synthesis routes rely on expensive precursors, toxic solvents, and multi-step templating. In stark contrast, biological systems, from sea sponges to mollusk shells, have solved the problem of creating and controlling hierarchical inorganic nanostructures under ambient conditions. These biological systems have been studied for fabrication of structural materials, but only limited reports of functional material biosynthesis are available. The challenge is to harness these biological routes to generate the correct materials as hierarchical 3D structures that maintain the functionality derived from their nanostructure. This summer the students will harness biomanufacturing to create a photovoltaic cell electrode.

This project is an innovative example of how the University creates an experiential learning opportunity driven by student passion and inquiry that can lead to innovative solutions to the world’s 21st century challenges.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this program.

Sincerely,

Delicia Nahman

Office of Sustainability