Land lab

An educational land lab with pollinators gardens, bird houses, and vegetable garden space within an urban setting.

A land lab is an area of land that has been set aside for use in biological studies. Thus, it is literally an outdoor laboratory based on an area of land.

Studies may be elementary or advanced. For instance, students may simply be given the task of identifying all the tree species in a land lab, or an advanced student may be doing an intensive survey of the microbial life forms found in a soil sample.

Land labs are often marked out in plots or transects for studies. A plot may be any size, usually marked out in square meters. This allows for more intensive, delimited studies of changes and inventories of biota. Transects are straight lines at which, at intervals, measurements are taken for a profile of the ecological community.

Land labs serve an important role in giving students access to a natural environment to observe native plants and wildlife, apply STEM concepts with hands on projects, and build a better understanding of how critical biodiversity is for ecological health.

Common educational projects conducted at a land lab often include:

• Surveying pollinator species in pollinator gardens or in the native flora
• Restoring old agricultural land back to original landscapes such as: wetlands, prairie, or forest
• Composting biomass to rebuild healthy soil
• Maintaining beehives or other pollinator habitats for moths, ground bees, and other pollinators
• Recording weather conditions to better understand the microclimate
• Conducting nature studies to identify and observe local flora and fauna
• Planting native trees, grasses, and flowers to increase biodiversity
• Encouraging native riparian plant growth along ponds and streams
• Installing bird houses, bat houses and owl houses
• Holding art classes where students can paint flora, fauna and landscapes
• Collecting and removing trash and other man-made pollutants
• Designing low-impact trails and paths for visitors to explore the land lab

Real world K12 Land Lab Examples:

A notable K12 land lab example is the Granville Land Lab in Ohio.

The Granville Land Lab is a good example of a student-driven land restoration project to further STEM education.

Below is a brief overview of the land lab project from their website:

"The Granville Land Lab is the largest outdoor K-12 educational facility in Ohio with 90 acres, soon to be 100 acres, of land. It functions as part of the Granville Schools Sustainability Project. The Land Lab was created to contribute to conservation by restoring the area in front of the Granville Intermediate School. It is an outdoor classroom for students of the Granville Exempted School District, Denison University, and surrounding school districts of Licking County. It provides unique, hands-on experiences to help students learn about life, physical, and environmental sciences, math, English, art, and music."

• A quick introduction video about the Granville Land Lab
• Environmental Science teacher James Reding being interviewed about the land lab

Studying humans needs and sustainability in land labs:

Learning to produce food, fiber and energy in sustainable ways is a tremendous opportunity for students of all ages within land labs. Students can explore biomass energy, biogas fuels, solar energy, permaculture, composting, organic gardening, and many other facets of sustainability through land labs.

By designing systems that mimic natural processes (biomimicry), we are able to produce food, fiber, and energy in more sustainable ways for local communities. Numerous environmental and economic benefits exist to growing food locally and producing energy locally. These biomimicry inspired systems are circular in nature. Nothing is wasted, as the outputs of one circular system become the inputs of another.

Circular systems in land labs:

Circular system experiments, promoting a circular economy, are a natural fit for educational land labs. Circular systems function by ensuring that nothing is wasted. Every output of a system becomes an input for another system.

For example: Food scraps feed chickens, chicken manure fertilizes the garden, the garden grows more vegetables, food scraps are then available from the vegetables to feed chickens.

Circular systems that are well-suited for land labs include:

• Biogas methane digesters for generating clean cooking fuel and liquid fertilizer for gardens
• Composting rollers for composting leaves, grass clippings, & food scraps
• Raising black soldier fly larvae on food waste to become feed for chickens or fish
• Solar panels for providing on-site power
• Free range chickens for providing eggs and manure
• Greenhouses for growing mushrooms and seedlings
• Raised beds for market garden vegetables
• Beehives for garden pollination, honey, and wax
• Rotationally grazed pastures for goats, cattle, pigs, sheep, etc
• Biochar production to improve soil quality
• Aquaponics systems for growing fish and greens
• Rainwater collection systems for retaining water for gardens