A laboratory exercise for an introductory environmental course was developed to gather environmental data on academic buildings while providing service learning opportunities for students.  This project was valuable both as an assessment tool for the University as well as a practical exercise for the students. 

The information gathered was intended to provide baseline data for a monitoring program on campus focusing on building occupants’ actions with respect to energy conservation and waste reduction.   The variables chosen for evaluation were selected not only for usefulness of the findings but also for the ease of data collection by untrained undergraduate students. 

This exercise also involved students in issues on their own campus and most students reported a heightened awareness to lights being left in and the need for improved recycling as a result.  The data collected could then be used by the University to guide future programs to reduce energy use, waste and expenses.
During this first year of implementation we experienced problems with data consistency, and were unable to draw statistically significant conclusions from the data gathered and therefore the data was not used to establish a baseline as intended.  However, the project was still a valuable learning experience for the students.  Since then the design has been altered to avoid some of the problems we experienced.

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