It might be strange to think about this but often the most influential and impactful technology on campus tends to be older technology, especially when it comes to environmental sustainability. I was recently asked to speak at a course about Technology, Society, and the Environment. The idea behind inviting me was to speak to the group about how campus sustainability has been helped along by technology. I thought that I might share this list with you too so you could learn a bit about the new, the old, the unconventional, and the interesting technologies that helped shaped our campus over the past few years. The Living Wall One of the most popular pieces of technology is the University of Ottawa's living wall. In fact, the wall is not just a pretty assortment of 1500 plants, it is a biofilter which is being used to help filter the air inside the FSS Building. The wall helps cleanse 80-85% of the volatile compounds in the air  and it was also instrumental in helping soli...

There was once a time when university campuses where funded almost exclusively by land endowments.Some noble person would bequeath a plot of land to a university in the hopes of providing a place for education to flourish. These parcels of land were typically enormous, and small sections of the land could be sold or leased for a profit. In this manner, the institution would be able to pay for the cost of operating their institution. Need to hire more profs, sale a patch of land over in the East corner. Need to build a new library, log some of the forest and make a profit from the timber. And thus an institution could thrive perpetually on the land endowed to them. But, the world changes and gone are the days of land endowments functioning as the sole money generator for universities. Today, most endowments are financial in nature and are vulnerable to the whims of the market and political popularity. If the market slumps, universities have less operating funds. If the government t...