Martha Cattell, the Living Lab’s new Research Assistant

Martha Cattell, the Living Lab’s new Research Assistant, explores just why the current Living Lab focuses on climate resilience, how climate change is already affecting our campus, and how staff and students can get involved in positive solutions this year.  

Following Yorkshire’s driest spring in 130 years, this past summer has also been turbulent for the region. Sudden downpours in July triggered flash floods in Acomb, yellow heatwave warnings and hosepipe bans were issued and reservoir levels were 26% lower than usual. These stark shifts in regional conditions are also being felt closer to home on the York St John campus. This blog explores a number of the adaptations that staff and students are implementing to support the wellbeing of those that inhabit the campus from plants and insects to the student and staff populace, all of which supports Living Lab’s current two-year theme of Climate Resilience.  

On our campus the Estates team look after the expansive and varied 11-acre site, and they have adopted various initiatives to support the green spaces in these more turbulent conditions.  This has involved adaptive planting, including on top of the bike sheds, where low-maintenance, drought-tolerant and insect friendly plants including Chives and Garlic have been sown, and information panels explain the different plants and reasons for their choices. The space outside the Creative Centre is also being developed in a more Mediterranean style, to withstand arid conditions and overflow from the pond. As well as this more drought-resistant planning, there is still much of the campus that requires watering, so increasing rainwater storage capacity is being planned to support plant life, the pond, and Haxby Road sports fields (especially in the face of future hosepipe bans). These, along with the use of mulch, will aid in protecting soil moisture on even the driest of days. 

The catering team now harvest ingredients from the community gardening beds

The regular on-campus community gardening group ‘Wild Wednesdays’ have also noticed the need for greater resilience. Amy Hodgson, who helps run the sessions, commented how alongside similar issues raised above, work practices can also prove challenging. This includes ‘heat of the summer and cold of winters [being] uncomfortable to work in particularly rain,’ and the ‘very wet then dry weather can lead to compacted soil which is hard to work with.’ This raises the need to consider more adaptive working schedules alongside practices. 

This resilience has not just been adopted in relation to outdoor work on campus, and there is clear evidence from the World Health Organisation, that heat events related to climate change are contributing to increased risk of heat stress in workplaces. On our campus, we need to consider the risks of extreme heat to students, staff, and other users alike. On 27th August, Jude Parks, senior lecturer in Geography, Living Lab module co-ordinator, and YSJ University and College Union green representative (a role she shares with Lucy Potter from the Teaching and Learning Enhancement team) led a campus temperature check, in response to the Trades Union Congress Workplace temperatures week of action. Jude was supported by Julia Dyman, energy officer with the Estates team. Using a ‘heat gun’ and ‘relative humidity’ checker, Jude and Julia visited a range of buildings on campus to record the temperature and humidity levels in key rooms (teaching spaces and offices) and corridors. They report:  

We did this at 10-11am, and again at 2-3pm, to record temporal variations in temperature. The chosen day was a warm one (the outside temperature at 2pm was 20.9C in the De Grey/ Foss forecourt, and 22.3C in the Quad), with recorded room/ corridor temperatures ranging from 21.5C to 24.8C. We will be sharing our data with the Students Union and YSJ University and College Union branch, as well as with the Estates team and other interested parties. We intend to repeat our temperature survey at a later date, particularly to investigate further the impact of lights and PCs being left on in empty rooms on the temperature of the rooms. If you are interested in being involved in a future temperature check, please contact j.parks@yorksj.ac.uk. 

As we approach the start of the new term, questions around making the campus more climate resilient are being raised, and responses being trialled, and it offers a good time to think about the collective work and conversations we can all have, and the way the Living Lab can bring these efforts together.  

To see what the Living Lab accomplished in its first year and find out how you can get involved in 2025-26, have a watch of our new video, edited by Mhairi Fox. 

Further Reading 

If you (staff or student) are interested in getting involved in Wild Wednesdays, please email sustainability@yorksj.ac.uk or meet the team on Wednesdays at 12-2pm outside the Students’ Union.  

Kew Gardens, Carbon Garden, ‘Kew’s newest garden showcases the vital role of carbon in the life of plants, fungi and the future of humanity’: https://www.kew.org/kew-gardens/whats-in-the-gardens/carbon-garden 

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust ‘Our Comment on the Yorkshire Hosepipe Ban’: https://www.ywt.org.uk/news/our-comment-yorkshire-hosepipe-ban 

York Mix ‘How a Mediterranean Garden is now blooming near York’ https://yorkmix.com/how-a-mediterranean-garden-is-now-blooming-near-york/ 

World Health Organisation, ‘Climate change and workplace heat stress: technical report and guidancehttps://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240099814