{"id":773,"date":"2020-01-15T10:02:22","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T15:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/?p=773"},"modified":"2022-04-20T08:14:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T13:14:12","slug":"going-green-sustainability-at-university-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/going-green-sustainability-at-university-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"The green scene at UML: Sustainability at University Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"the<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Guiding you as you realize your potential to take on a world of opportunity is our number one priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want the world to be a better and more sustainable place for you, your loved ones and for future generations.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we\u2019re not here to check a box for the\nshow of it or to make a splash (we\u2019re pretty big into conserving water and\nresources tbh). That\u2019s why lot of our sustainability efforts are ingrained into\nthe very fabric of the university\u2014even\ndown to the design and construction and furniture we use in our buildings<\/em>.\nIt\u2019s all hidden in plain sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people, don\u2019t realize at first a lot of the things they see around campus are actually calculated, sustainable choices UML has made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we\u2019re going to explore these choices in a building you might be familiar with if you\u2019ve toured campus: University Crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"university<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The buzz around campus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you listen closely before you step\ninto UCrossing there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll hear buzzing. The greenery and\nflower beds you see outside? They aren\u2019t there to just look pretty\u2014they\u2019re\nfilled to the brim with plants and flowers that bees and other pollinators find\nirresistible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re Pollinator Gardens, and we have\nthem all over campus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They provide food and refuge for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds that, in turn, help pollinate and strengthen the local ecosystems around campus that provide us with food, clean air and water.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bee<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These pollinators set off a chain reaction in the city and campus community. Not only do they help boost our ecosystem, they also helped us transition to becoming a Bee Campus<\/a>. By working with Bee City USA, a national organization that raises awareness of the important role that pollinators play in urban communities, the city of Lowell and UMass Lowell recently became certified as a Bee City and Bee Campus respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increase in pollinators around the city and campus led to the UMass Lowell Sustainability Farm Share team to partner with Carlisle Honey and New England Bee Keeping. This partnership not only helps promote a healthy bee population around campus, it also provides the community with fresh honey products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check it out: Let them eat grass<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainability is a work of art at UML<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As you enter University Crossing, what\nyou\u2019ll notice first is all the windows. They\u2019re floor-to-ceiling and hard to\nmiss. As you walk further into the main atrium, you\u2019ll see what looks like a\nmassive, art structure hanging from the ceiling, but it\u2019s doing more than\ncreating an aesthetic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, UCrossing relies mostly on\nnatural lighting. The windows provide the light source and the hanging,\nvaguely-modern, art piece isn\u2019t just part of the d\u00e9cor. It\u2019s a giant reflector\nthat helps distribute the natural light as far into the building as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the building can operate using less energy and electric lighting. There are even daylight harvesting controls that use photo sensors to measure how much light is coming in from outside and automatically adjusts the electric lighting to save energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"windows
Natural lighting in University Crossing lessens our need for electric lighting and saves energy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"light
These light reflectors push the natural light further into the building.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The sustainable food cycle<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After taking in the atrium at UCrossing, you\u2019ll probably notice all the dining options, and even those operate in an eco-friendly way! From Starbucks to pizza to soups, salads and made-to-order sandwiches, the Crossroads Caf\u00e9 satisfies every craving our students have. Every meal is made with sustainably sourced ingredients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"crossroads
Crossroads Caf\u00e9 prepares meals and snacks from sustainably sourced ingredients.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"dining
Dining areas at UCrossing are popular hang out spots for students between classes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When our students\u2019 eyes are bigger than their bellies, all those leftover food scraps are composted. That compost is then used as soil for the rooftop garden that\u2019s on top of UCrossing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check it out: Raise the roof! It’s growing food<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"harvesting
The Rooftop Garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"organic
The compost used on the Rooftop Garden comes from scraps from dining areas across campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"vegetable
The produce grown here provides the local community with fresh and healthy food options.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The plants you see were grown from seedlings in the 1,800-square-foot urban agriculture greenhouse and urban farm on the university\u2019s East Campus. The seedlings were then transferred to milkcrates filled with compost that originated from campus dining. A smart drip irrigation system controlled by an app that adjusts to the weather outside waters the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The produce grown on the rooftop garden\nin turn feeds the Lowell community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a cycle of sustainably-grown food. Like the circle of life, but with veggies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are just a few of the many sustainable choices that contributed to UML being the highest-rated campus<\/a> in Massachusetts for sustainability. We\u2019re here for the long haul because, at the end of the day, we only get one planet to live on, and we\u2019ve always been on the side of the do-ers and dreamers who fight for a better world. <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guiding you as you realize your potential to take on a world of opportunity is our number one priority. We want the world to be a better and more sustainable place for you, your loved ones and for future generations. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":754,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,51],"tags":[66,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/754"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}