A new building triggered a new way of thinking about Schoonmeersen campus and the open space it features. This process was given the name Living Lab HOGENT. A living lab with a lot of initiatives that, among other things, focuses on connecting with the neighbourhood and the city and creating biodiversity and ecological added value in the urban environment. Last week, lecturers and students planted some 1,000 plants to green the environment.
Tine Vanthuyne, who as lecturer and researcher is very much involved in the project, explains how it started: "The neighbourhood and the Ghent city council had been asking for some time not to close off the campus. The various small initiatives that have since grown out of the project illustrate that we have significantly more contact with the neighbours."
Local resident Lieven Hérie agrees: "Encounter is the basis for many things, and often for change. It is one of the things the Living Lab project is successfully focusing on: it is a trickle-down process, but change is noticeable in our neighbourhood. Opening up the campus, organising activities for and together with local residents and local organisations, creates a new dynamic, moving HOGENT into the neighbourhood and the neighbourhood into HOGENT."
Deep learning
For HOGENT, Living Lab offers a unique opportunity to organise education differently. The project is integrated in courses of several curricula, such as social work, social educational care work, real estate, landscape architecture and agricultural and biotechnology.
The students end up in a very specific situation in which they have to take into account aspects other than those of their own programme. This offers significant added value, Tine Vanthuyne explains: "In the social work programme, we are careful not to work only in classrooms, because in our discipline, connecting is very important, but it is not obvious to integrate this in the programme. Living Lab is therefore a huge opportunity for students to make real connections, with students from other courses, with local residents, with external organisations. It offers opportunities for deep learning."
Tine gives an example of deep and connecting learning: "Social educational care work students have created a draft script for a vegetable garden project, using vegetable growing as a connecting element to bring elderly people in the neighbourhood out of their solitude. This implies dialogue with local residents, as well as collaborating with students from other curricula, such as green management and agriculture."In another project, landscape architecture students design an attractive campus space, focusing on meeting as well as biodiversity and climate-friendly components. In the next step, some of the proposals will be put into practice.
Early December, several HOGENT colleagues, lecturers, students, and neighbours helped to give 1,000 additional plants a place in the open space on campus.
Biodiversity
In addition, climate change is high on Living Lab HOGENT's agenda. Experiments are taking place with green, bio-diverse outdoor spaces that can capture as much CO2 as possible, reduce heat stress and buffer water.
Early December, several lecturers, students, and neighbours helped to give 1,000 additional plants a place in the open space on campus. These came on top of the more than 8,000 plants that were previously planted.
To make the site even more of an experience space, 'ecoshelters' will also be set up. These ecoshelters are vegetative islands and new biotopes, bringing more structure to the open site: they create green islands that at the same time provide a place to chill and gather.
The Living Lab HOGENT project is a real example of how an educational campus can also provide added value for the neighbourhood, the city and the environment.