Project Info

Developing an App and a Carbon footprint to reduce campus food waste and support Mines pantry

The student will be working to develop two applications: 1) a mobile application for the Mines campus to notify community members of food surpluses/opportunities for free food; and 2) a web application to help consumers make more environmentally-conscious diet choices, especially in regard to reducing disruption of environmental nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycles.

The purpose of the first application is to both reduce campus food waste and combat food insecurity in the Mines community. The purpose of the second application is to educate consumers about environmental impacts of their diet choices related to nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycle disruption. N and P losses to the environment have a wide-range of impacts, including contribution to global climate change, eutrophication of both coastal and inland water bodies, air pollution, and drinking water pollution.

More Information

The food surplus/free food notification app would be structured similarly to the LunchBox App (but with many improvements and a N & C footprint calculator):
http://www.universitylunchbox.com/#about

The diet N and P footprint calculator would be modeled after carbon footprint calculators like the one from the Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/consider-your-impact/carbon-calculator/

Grand Engineering Challenge: Manage the nitrogen cycle

Student Preparation

Qualifications

Basic programming skills and experience, creativity, organization skills, interest in environmental issues.

Time Commitment

15-20 hours/month, depending on prior experience in app development

Skills/Techniques Gained

Programming/app development experience, increased understanding of the contributions of food systems to N and P cycle disruption, Carbon footprinting and sustainability assessments, food waste management.

Mentoring Plan

The student will meet one-on-one, weekly or bi-weekly with the Research Team (which includes Dr. Landis and 2 grad students) for project planning and progress reports. The student will work closely with two graduate student mentors who will also be available to the student throughout the fellowship to answer questions and assist with technical skills development.

The undergraduate research student will also join weekly Landis Sustainability Research Group meetings, where we do professional development activities as a group (e.g. include networking, website development, managing social media, impostor syndrome, etc).

The student will also be encouraged to participate in local conferences and events to present and disseminate their research.