Nantucket Harbor
The LivingLabs on Nantucket Island
The LivingLabs® (founded by Anamarija Frankic) are practical, solution driven responses to growing environmental, social and economic challenges. The LivingLabs aim to address, develop, and implement unique holistic solutions to environmental issues at a local level. They provide graduate and undergraduate students with opportunities for hands-on transdisciplinary applied research experience; they address local community needs; and they provide solutions through innovative disciplines like biomimicry: mimicking nature’s own adaptations to environmental challenges. In addition, students involved with LivingLabs develop professional networks through internships at NGOs, business, and government agencies, as well as with their LivingLabs advisors, mentors, and peers.
View Nantucket LivingLabs in a larger map. Note map locations are approximate.
Nantucket Island is a pilot site for the LivingLabs, innovative educational programs for teaching and learning by doing concrete projects with local communities. This spring semester, from January 20 until April 20, Nantucket became a science laboratory for a group of 16 University of Massachusetts Boston undergraduates participating in this unique environmental program that offers courses for students studying the earth and ocean sciences, including biomimicry research and education. GHP Director and Biomimicry Fellow Anamarija Frankic , the founder of the LivingLabs, will serve as one of the key faculty in the program. (Spring 2013 Syllabus).
As an island, Nantucket is an example of a unique environmental setting where sustainable practices can be learned and applied to model how these vulnerable communities can adapt with nature to meet environmental challenges such as changing climate. Participants will learn about the resiliency and tenacity of coastal and island ecosystems, and how to emulate linked ecological and human services for a sustainable future.
