This interdisciplinary course is a real-world collaborative multi-year project that connects various departments, courses, and independent study projects on a college campus. Using the client/consultant model, students from several departments and a wide range of environmental backgrounds come together to explore the design of an efficient future student house on campus. Over a couple of years, students research and test building designs, energy for heating and power, natural flows of available energy, natural ecosystem processes including living machines, and possible materials to use in the eventual construction of the eco-house. This SERC Starting Point site includes learning goals, context for use, teaching tips and materials, assessment, and references.

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We encourage the reuse and dissemination of the material on this site for educational, noncommercial purposes as long as attribution is retained. To this end the material on this site is offered under a Creative Commons license. Authors of original works submitted to SERC retain their copyright. But in volunteering the works they agree to offer it under this license allowing for reuse and redistribution with attribution. Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permission for all materials that they distribute within their work.

This resource is part of 'Teaching Entry Level Geoscience'

This resource is part of 'Campus-Based Learning'

Editor: Suzanne Savanick
Carleton College Science Education Resource Center

Principal Investigator: Cathy Manduca
Carleton College

Contributor: Prof Gary Wagenbach
Carleton College Department of Biology

Contributor: Richard Strong
Carleton College Facilities Management and Planning