Mason as a Living Lab

This month the organizers of the Foragers’ Forest on George Mason’s Fairfax Campus marked the project’s first anniversary with the planting of endangered American chestnut trees.

For its commitment to campus sustainability, George Mason University has earned a Gold rating in the STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) Assessment. STARS is a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance and is offered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Kirin Emlet Furst, in Mason's Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, is using funds from an NSF CAREER award to measure the amounts of harmful "forever" chemicals in drinking water.

April is Earth Month, and it is a great time to promote sustainable best practices on George Mason University campuses and off.

In November 2023, Mason students, faculty, and staff gathered to help transplant 1,700 plants of more than 50 native species into two groves near the stream behind Student Union Building I between Aquia Creek Lane and Patriot Circle.

Mason students are taking pictures of the campus flora, fauna, and fungi with their smartphones—sometimes in the dark—to capture the university’s biodiversity. They are trying to record as many species as possible in this fall's Bioblitz 2023, which continues through Nov. 19.

With nearly 1,000 acres of land, waterways, forests, and buildings, George Mason University’s campuses are a dynamic, living learning environment of hands-on applied research.

The Green Studio, located on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus, is a permaculture garden, outdoor studio, and lab space dedicated to hosting ecological art and design projects by students from across the arts and sciences. Jennifer Ashworth wanted to elevate the space in preparation for more student projects in the future. She applied for funding through University Sustainability’s Patriot Green Fund and was granted financial support to revamp the garden in preparation for the new academic year.

PSYC 461 Advanced Topics in Human Factors is an interactive, hands-on curriculum that challenges students to solve real-life issues offered for the first time in the spring 2023 semester.