About the Keney Park Sustainability Project:
Keney Park Sustainability Project (KPSP) is a local nonprofit organization that has engaged the community in a variety of areas including: health, education, waste stream reduction, forest management, and urban agriculture. KPSP partners with UConn to conduct programs and projects with service learning impacts. These programs have a primary focus in the North Hartford Promise Zone, one of 20 opportunity areas in the country. KPSP’s main goals are: to support the sustainable development of community-based food systems, to protect and preserve urban forest by providing individuals employable forest management skills, and to educate families about the impact of the environment on mental, physical and spiritual health.
Keney Park Sustainability Project Website:
https://www.keneyparksustainability.org/
Example Partnership Project with UConn – Keney Park Solar Thermal Project:
The Keney Park Sustainability Project sponsored a UConn engineering senior design team to install a solar thermal heating system for its greenhouse in Hartford. The goal of this project is to allow a greenhouse to produce crops throughout the winter for Hartford Public Schools. Their system supplements propane heating with solar energy and reduces fossil fuel use in the winter by up to half. Solar energy is collected by a heat transfer fluid and stored by heating a tank of water, which is used to heat plants throughout the greenhouse. A ‘mini-greenhouse’ design increases the efficiency of the system by confining any heat given off, reducing heat loss. The time-dependent temperature distribution in the ‘mini-greenhouse’ will be modeled using finite element modeling in COMSOL. This COMSOL study models natural convection from a pipe to determine an ideal radiator configuration for heating plants on a tiered growing shelf. The group produced a proposal to Keney Park including a bill of materials, a piping and instrumentation diagram, and any manufacturers or contractors needed to install the solar thermal system. The food produced by the system will be donated to Hartford Public Schools, a school system that serves a food-insecure community. Solar heating is a cleaner source of energy than propane, so installing solar thermal will reduce CO2 emissions and the greenhouses’ contribution to Hartford air pollution.
Video presentation for the Keney Park Solar Thermal Project:
Additional List of Partnership Projects between UConn and the Keney Park Sustainability Project:
UConn Engineering — Clock Tower Project
UConn Engineering — Aquaponics System Upgrade
UConn Engineering — Solar Thermal Water Heating System
UConn Engineering — Clock Tower Lighting Project
UConn MBA — Organization Data Analytics
UConn Digital Media & Design — History Harvest, A New Keney Park House, Keney Park History
UConn Sustainable Community Food Systems MInor — Educational Signage for KPSP, Experiential Learning Interface UConn Urban and Community Studies — Keney Park Survey and Initial Assessment of Usability
UConn Spring Valley Student Farm — Sharing of food sustainability models and bee workshops
UConn Graduate Student — Bee Research and Workshop Design and Implementation
UConn MBA — Business Strategy Hakathon
UConn Psychological Sciences — National Science Foundation Grant Submission re: Conflict Resolution
UConn CCEI — Marketing, Data Entry & Graphic Design
UConn Political Science (Crime and Justice Class) — Community Policing Study
Husky Nutrition — Mobile Teaching Kitchen Support & Nutrition Demonstrations
UConn Sociology — Opposing Viewpoints Bench work
UConn G.I.V.E.S — Volunteering & Service Learning
UConn Medical School — Volunteering & Service Learning
UConn Law School — Volunteering & Service Learning
Net Impact UConn Grad — Volunteering & Service Learning
UConn GAPPS — Volunteering & Service Learning
(Graduate Association for Public Policy Students)