2024 Projects

The Wampum Learning lodge hosts bi-weekly Culture Nights, that are designed to bring people together in a healthy way, which is very important in building a safe environment for cultural reclamation. This project has introduced new programming in two areas, Indigenous crafting and Powwow Fitness. 

This project involved creating a 2-day sustainable development seminar for incoming CEMS exchange students, which will be focused on textiles. The event included a speaker series that featured fashion industry professionals as well as industry visits, including a trip to the Goodwill shredding/recycling factory here in London.

The Western Engineering Green Technology Club (WEGTC) embarked on an ambitious project to construct and optimize a Direct Air Capture Device that is capable of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a critical step in combating climate change. This project was the WEGTC's first Direct Air Capture Device prototype.

This project will create a Speaker Session for the Faculty of Engineering, focused on sharing how Western researchers are making a positive impact on life and the environment. Through this speaker series, the project team hopes to engage 120-150 attendees, including students, staff, and faculty. This project supports both Western Engineering's Vision & Mission as well as the University's Strategic Plan - "Western's Place in the World".

This project hosted a two-day training workshop on building sustainable and inclusive cities. This event focused on bringing Western into the collaborative network of the international think-tank ICCCASU (the International Conference on Canadian, Chinese and African Sustainable Urbanization). This workshop academics, researchers, professionals, local communities and city officials across the globe to participate in sharing and exchanging experiences, challenges and opportunities.

This project is working to advance the Environmental Sciences Western Field Station to become a critical teaching and training facility in sustainability. This project includes completing a biodiversity inventory of the ESW site, establishing a sustainable management plan that will maintain and enhance biodiversity on this site and evaluating the use of this site by migratory and resident birds.

The Dr. Laurie L Consaul Herbarium and the Zoological Collections of the Department of Biology contain thousands of research specimens of plants, fungi and animals collected on campus, throughout the city of London and in the surrounding region. Currently, most of the Zoological Collections and Herbariums specimens are not digitized and this project support the first phase of digitizing the collection. Digitizing the collection will help advance the science of biodiversity in a variety of ways, including uploading the data to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). 

This project involves the research and implementation of alternative de-icers, that are less corrosive and harmful to the environment. By working together to find more sustainable solutions, the University can contribute to the broader community's efforts to reduce the environmental impact of road salt use.

This project installed boxes for birds of prey (such as Easter Screech Owls, Barred Owls, Great Horned Owls or American Kestrels) to natural areas near buildings on campus, providing a natural rodent pest control service. Each bird of prey will consume hundreds to thousands of rodents each year, which will reduce the risk of rodents entering building and requiring other interventions, such as applications of pesticides. 

This project developed and implemented Western's first-ever Forest City Tree Festival in October 2024. The weekend was dedicated to celebrating trees on campus, in collaboration with City of London, ReForest London, and the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority. Programming including nature walks, tree giveaways, and panel discussions.

Installation of bird safety film on the windows of the entrance corner of the Music Building and two connecting passages between it and Talbot College that are almost entirely made of glass. 

This project will created a public podcast and workshop series at the Centre for Sustainable Curating. The podcast series focuses onartists and their work as it relates to the environment and will exploreenvironmental issues and climate change from a cultural and artistic perspective. The in-person workshop explored sustainable practices, processes, and materials of art-makingTogether, the podcast and workshops will engage the campus and local communities, while supporting teaching and learning with sustainability knowledge and practices.

In collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Curating, this project developed a hands-on workshop for Western students with Tahir Carl Karmali, a Nairobi-born and Brooklyn-based artist, as the event's featured guest. The event focused on ethical mining operations abroad.

This project hosted a panel on art, activism, educational methodologies, and power structures with perspectives from experts in art and visual culture in March 2024 for the campus community. The interactive panel discussion involved experts in environmental activism and scholars in the fields of art and visual culture, featuring artists Gwenyth Chao and Emily Chudnovsky.

This research project is examining white sucker migration in Medway Creek, and involves field lab and outreach components. White suckers are a migratory fish, who migrate approximately 250 km up river from Lake St. Clair to spawn in the upper Thames River and its tributaries, and back again. This research focused on the white sucker could provide key information about the overall ecosystem health of the Thames River.

The annual WaterAid Western Sustainability Conference took place at the end of the academic term in March 2024, around World Water Day. The event focused on the climate crisis, call for action, and educate students on how to live a more eco-conscious lifestyle.

This project will renew and expand the living infrastructure at Western's Teaching, Research and Community Apiary. This project will not only double the number of hives, but also include improvements to the basic hive physical infrastructure needed to optimize the health of the colony.

Installation of bird safety film on the windows of the Collip Medical Science Building, glass façade of the Western Science Building, and windows of third-floor bridge connecting BGSB to curb bird strikes.

This student-led project will examine the effect of CO2 on the exfoliation of carbon and on the thermal, sound insulation, fire retardancy, and mechanical properties of polystyrene nanocomposite foam. 

This project is advacing work outlined in Schulich Dentistry's Sustainability Action plan, by will enable dental students to provide the highest level of patient care, through a sustainable approach.  This project is supporting the transition to an open digital workflow for the fabrication of dental prostheses and delivery of treatment by eliminating the need to transport dental impressions and casts between the University and lab, reducing Western’s carbon footprint.

This project hosted two events focusing on fundraising/entrepreneur education workshops for not-for-profit and social enterprises, and is a collaboration between LEADER Project at Ivey and Innovation Works. The goal and objective was to educate social enterprise leaders with business acumen, in order to help make these organizations more sustainable. These events targetted enterprises that inherently benefitted the community to create and foster community ties and connections.

This installed informational signage at the Friends of the Garden (FOGs) Pollinator Garden, with artwork created by Clair Yu. The garden was created in 2022 and expanded in 2023 and is a significant and visible sustainability project on campus.  This signage will improve awareness of the project and to teach the campus community about the design elements and goals of the pollinator garden.

The Western Engineering Concrete Canoe Association (WECCA) sought out to reduce the environmental impact of the concrete mix used in this year’s project through the introduction of recycled rubber tires.  This project was a great opportunity for the club to expand their knowledge about how recycled material can be used as a direct substitute for unsustainable aggregates. By implementing rubber into the concrete mix design, the team successfully was able to decrease the consumption of unsustainable aggregates and increase theconcrete’s tensile strength.

This project hosted on-campus event targeted towards first and second year undergraduate engineering students. The pitch competition was designed to encourage sustainable design in the transportation and engineering sector, in the context of campus.

This project implemented a PPE recycling program in the Anatomy Lab at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, specifically focusing on disposable face masks. It is estimated that more than 25,000 disposable face masks will be diverted from landfill through this program, as they are currently thrown in the garbage.

This project built upon and expanded a program started by the Society of Biology Graduate Students (SOGBS), that recycles snack wrappers in the Department of Biology. It expanded the program to add snack wrapper recycling at 9 locations on campus including BGSB, Middlesex College, UCC, WSC, NCB, Collip and NSC and will continue to be managed by the SOGBS.

This project aims to install informational signage near the entrance to several trails on campus to inform trail users about their ecological significance, to share rules and considerations for using natural areas, and to reflect Western's commitment to environmental stewardship. Signs are proposed for installation at entrances to the Medway Valley Heritage Forest and at several locations along the Thames River.

The overall goal of this project is to encourage active and sustainable transportation options on campus in order to increase participation in the bicycling community. From September to October 2024, Cycling Awareness Month at Western was a campus-wide cycling competition that encouraged participants to track their commutes via bicycle. The second element of this project will install a bike repair station on campus.