My good idea
Most colleges, including mine, have vast expanses of well manicured lawns that really serve no purpose other than to have a big field of green to fit the standard of what it means to have nice landscaping.
However I have recently learned that lawns and bare fields that are used for nothing other than looks do more harm than good to the environment. They do serve wildlife, they don’t serve helpful insects, and they do not improve the quality of land where they are located.
Which brings me to my great idea. We should use some if not all of these big grass patches as college community gardens. The benefits are endless.
Students can learn to grow their own food and take care of plants. Those skills can be taken with them wherever they move to allow them to grow more of their own food which saves money and is better for the environment (if more people grew more of their own food, the carbon footprint of food transportation could decrease quite a bit). And lets not forget that most college students are poor and therefore do not make getting fresh fruits and vegetables a priority, especially due to cost. Allowing students to grow these foods themselves is cheaper and would create a healthier student community.
Students would learn so much about gardening, composting, seasonal foods. It could teach them how to incorporate more vegetables into their diet.
And if your school is a science one like mine, the ecology and plant life teachers could do research using the gardens. They could study plant life and insect/animal life that depend on these gardens.
They don’t even have to be vegetable gardens, the land could be used for landscaping that actually looks good and includes trees, shrubs, flowers, etc.
Big grass lawns and fields that have no purpose, are a waste, and students are encouraged to not even walk on them, at least at my campus.