Imagine UBC Botanical Garden as a vibrant, living laboratory offering an unparalleled environment for applied research and experiential learning. This is exactly how UBC’s Campus as a Living Lab (CLL) initiative envisions us as, and we’re grateful to be featured in their newest project highlight.
The Campus as a Living Lab reimagines the university itself as a site of experimentation and discovery. Across UBC Vancouver and Okanagan, classrooms extend outdoors, operational challenges become research questions and campus spaces transform into platforms for real-world solutions. Within this ecosystem, UBC Botanical Garden plays a vital role.
Where Learning Takes Root
As one of UBC’s most biologically rich and carefully stewarded landscapes, the garden offers an environment supporting research, teaching and collaboration across disciplines. Students and faculty use the Garden’s living collections, ecosystems and infrastructure to study biodiversity and climate resilience, as well as soil health, insects, microbes and plant adaptation.
Featured in the Living Lab are examples of students working alongside UBC staff and faculty to document insect and microbial populations associated with different tree species. Research that directly informs biodiversity conservation and land management practices on campus.
Bridging Research and Operations
What makes the Garden especially powerful as a living lab is its integration with day-to-day operations. Garden staff collaborate with researchers to test ideas in real conditions, balancing ecological integrity with public access, education and long-term stewardship.
This model reflects the broader goals of Campus as a Living Lab: integrating UBC’s academic mission with campus operations and creating research with tangible, practical outcomes for both the university and wider communities.
A Platform for Collaboration
From student-led projects to faculty research and externally partnered initiatives, the Garden exemplifies how campus land and natural resources can support innovation while remaining accessible and meaningful to the public.
Growing Impact Beyond the Garden
The significance of the Garden as a living lab extends far beyond its gates. Research conducted here contributes to UBC’s climate and biodiversity goals, supports sustainability planning and generates knowledge that can be applied in urban landscapes, conservation efforts and communities across British Columbia and beyond.
Learn more about Campus as a Living Laboratory from the UBC Sustainability Initiative.
Plan a research project with us – e-mail us at: garden.info@ubc.ca
Written by:
Michelle Jane
Marketing & Communications Assistant, Worklearn
UBC Botanical Garden