Ecocentre - greenhouse for sustainable communities
by
Geraldine Hinter
Mawson
Lakes campus will soon have a new focal point for ecological research
and teaching with construction underway next to the wetland ecosystem.
The first stage of the new EcoCentre will be a modern greenhouse and teaching areas planned for applied scientific research on bush food production and toxic contaminants affecting human health and natural ecosystems. The second stage will include walking trails, plant propagation rooms, and ultimately plans for an environmental interpretive centre with a theatre.
The centre will be a model for sustainability, focusing on environmental management, land care, and healthy lifestyle research and education, according to Director Joan Gibbs, lecturer in the School of Natural and Built Environments.
The EcoCentre aims to incorporate sustainable technologies such as solar energy, wind power generation, rainwater collection, passive energy use, and appropriate design considerations using principles of ecologically sustainable development.
“We want to do experiments in the greenhouse utilising recycled water and solar energy, and we want to bring together all of these examples of a sustainable society into a research and education facility for school and community groups to learn about sustainability, reconnect with the environment, and get a taste of bush food,” Gibbs said.
Students from biodiversity courses at Mawson Lakes have been growing bush foods for an Aboriginal restaurant in the Coorong and Gibbs is planning similar projects at the EcoCentre, with organised tastings of bush cuisine like wattle seed coffee and wild strawberry dipped in white chocolate.
“We are also growing native grasses for biodiversity research, which involves burning to remove the thatch so that new growth can come up, releasing nutrients to keep the soil healthy,” Gibbs said.
Senior Research Fellow Dr Albert Juhasz from the Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR) said the greenhouse would be a valuable research facility for investigating the use of plants for remediating contaminated land.
Toxins from contaminated soils will also be studied for their impact on plants, earthworms and other microbial processes, which are indicators of soil health. In addition, the possible transfer of contaminants from soils to plants, and then up through the food chain will be assessed for risk factors to human health.
Researchers from UniSA’s Sustainable Energy Centre (SEC) will install and then compare the efficiencies of two different types of solar panels to be used at the EcoCentre. Research Engineer Lachy Mudge said that in addition to supplying solar energy to the greenhouse, the panels would be used to generate power for the University’s electric car, with excess solar energy channeled for use elsewhere on campus or returned to the electricity grid.
The EcoCentre’s foundation committee partners include UniSA’s Sustainable Environments Research Group, CERAR, the Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies, SEC and TAFE SA.