Student Sustainability Projects
Student Projects: “Living Machine,” Wood-Fired Oven
Sustainable Living students created a range of Earth-friendly projects, including a "living machine," a brick oven capable of making 20-30 loaves of bread at a time, a solar collector, a website that monitors the energy performance of their classrooms, and a solar hot water heater.
The living machine, or aquaponic system, illustrates how a natural, living system can filter waste water. The self-contained system includes a tank for goldfish and circulates their wastewater through a system of edible plants, which use the waste as food, and then circulates the fresh water back into the tank. Among the plants to be grown in the system will be duckweed and others that will supply food for the fish.
The system is a small-scale model of the sort of living machine that could be used to purify a home, office complex, or an entire city.
"The goal is to create living buildings that give back more than they take from the environment," said student Joy Salmon. "You get food, you get fresh water, you get the sound of flowing water, and you get the ambience of plants. It's like having nature inside with you rather than having it be 'out there.' It helps us realize we're part of the cycle."
A different group of students applied their best masonry skills to build a large wood-fired brick oven that will eventually be moved from their workshop to a location outside.
Student Marco Sunseri said the oven will be capable of baking 20-30 loaves of bread at a time, and more importantly, will foster a local baking economy. The students were inspired in part by their class in artisanal foods and the book The Bread Builders, which explores the process of baking bread and teaches how to make masonry ovens. They also visited a deli in Ann Arbor that specializes in baking via such an oven.
Yet another group is installing a gizmo called a Hobo data logger, which tracks the amount of energy coming into the Sustainable Living wing from the wind turbine and solar panels and how much is being used by each of the six classrooms. The group is also setting up a website that will let them monitor the energy usage online.
"If you're going to use renewable energy, you can't waste it," said student Tom Lassota.
That group is also continuing work on a solar hot water heater begun in an earlier projects class.
And a fourth group built a "sunspace," a sort of lean-to on the south side of the building that consists of a wood frame covered with plastic, and like a greenhouse, collects heat which is circulated into the classroom to provide warmth without the use of fossil fuels. When the temperature was recently zero outside, the sunspace was 97 degrees.
Eventually the space will also become, in the words of student Jason Lanning, "an artsy lounge where students can hang out."
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