The Beloit College Sustainability Fellows Summer Program enhanced student understanding, confidence, skills, and future plans

Background/Question/Methods

The Beloit College Sustainability Fellows Program engaged undergraduate students in “liberal arts in practice” through sustainability-related activities at multiple sites on the campus and in the local community.  The goals of the program included enhancing the abilities of the fellows to obtain and analyze data and create and implement a sustainability plan in a community-based context, and the abilities of the host sites to achieve their sustainability goals.  During each of the last three summers, six to eight students spent eight weeks working on projects that explored the economic aspects of campus energy conservation, management of native species in urban and restoration contexts, environmental education, and community gardening.  A site supervisor and faculty mentor guided each student in the design, implementation, and evaluation of his or her project.  A weekly sustainability seminar provided a locus for exploring the sustainability literature and a community-based learning workshop that involved students in several campus programs helped students explore how to learn outside of the classroom context.  At the end of each summer, the fellows reflected on their experiences in writing. 

Results/Conclusions

During the past three summers, the fellows developed economic models for adding insulation to campus buildings, ran environmental education programs for children, developed a “sharing garden” in a low-income community, removed invasive plant species from a restoration site owned by a land trust, monitored the progress of a recently planted urban oak savanna, developed educational materials about native plants on campus, and much more.  The most frequently used words in the fellow’s reflections were “sustainability,” “program,” “learning,” “environmental,” “energy,” “plants,” and “fellows.”  The verbs that appeared most frequently were “work” and “used.”  The fellows reported that compared to the beginning of the program, they had a greater understanding of the breadth of topics related to sustainability, particularly economic development and social  equity; increased confidence when faced with practical tasks; improved quantitative and analytical skills; and more focused thoughts about their future plans.  The fellows also commented on aspects of the program that could be improved, primarily increasing the number of opportunities for the fellows to share their experiences with one another and reciprocal site visits.  The program continued in the summer of 2013 with attention to these suggestions.