Dickinson College
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Student employees, volunteers and recent graduate apprentices produce food for the campus and community, conduct research, design and build renewable energy systems, and educate the public on Dickinson's 90-acre farm. Students in a wide variety of disciplines learn about renewable energy and sustainable agriculture through living laboratory projects, workshops, and volunteer opportunities. On-site classes and independent research projects give students unique insights into complex mathematics, the role of food in global politics, public art projects, religious philosophies, and more.

The Dickinson College Farm provides food to the campus and local community. Harvests are provided as campus dining service options, and a significant portion comprise the Dickinson Farm’s Campus Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program. This May-November CSA produce subscription feeds more than 150 families. The farm also sells produce, using student workers, through a bountiful stand at Carlisle’s thriving weekly farmers’ market and donates thousands of pounds of fresh produce to a local food bank, Project SHARE.

Through youth programs such as Farm, Cook, Eat and Sustainable Earth Education (SEED) as well as through hosting popular food-centered events on campus and in the community, Dickinson College Farm serves as a venue for the Dickinson community and its neighbors to experience a holistic approach to land stewardship rooted in management practices that work to sustain the natural environment.

Examples of outcomes of student research and projects at the farm include a mobile app for data collection that is increasing farm management efficiency and is marketed to other farmers, an optimization model used to improve crop and pasture rotations, integration of renewable energy systems into the farm, innovations in integrated pest management at the farm, research on biogas production, a solar-powered farm utility vehicle, and an electric tractor.

Dickinson students have the opportunity to participate in courses that utilize community-based research pedagogy to engage them in mutually beneficial research projects with community partners. These courses often address sustainability-related issues. One of these courses, "Introduction to Sustainable and Resilient Communities," is focused on advancing sustainability in our community. Working in teams, students partner with community organizations in research that helps to advance landscape conservation, alternative transportation, sustainable recreation options, sustainable food systems, social capital, and climate resilience.

Partner organizations have included the Cumberland County Planning Department, the Borough of Carlisle, South Mountain Partnership, Hope Station, Westside Neighbors Association, Capital Area Resource Conservation & Development, and local workforce development programs.

Additionally, our Center for Civic Learning and Action (CCLA) works to develop ethical civic leaders who collaborate in the pursuit of just and resilient communities. Projects and programs of CCLA are working to connect campus and community operations through public engagement in the form of internships, service, civic engagement, community-based research for sustainable communities, and formal partnerships with borough government.

Students and faculty have consistently used Dickinson's commitment to carbon neutrality and climate action plan in courses across the curriculum as living laboratory projects and case studies that advance our own sustainability work. For example, a spring 2023 environmental studies course, A Just Energy Transition, explored Dickinson's offset purchases, analyzed other colleges choices, and provided recommendations to our climate action plan. The students conducted research on our carbon offset purchases in terms of credibility, additionality, verification, and costs.

We have permanently incorporated sustainability into the statistics curriculum at Dickinson. Probability and Statistics II includes data-driven student projects using statistics to explore their “place” at the college--i.e., using various statistical tools to examine the way the students are living and interacting on our residential campus. The students select from a set of variables to examine--e.g., water or power use, waste generation, LEED building comparison and performance--focused on Dickinson's buildings and operations. They then propose a sampling plan and use statistical techniques such as ANOVA, regression, and hypothesis testing to answer their questions of interest. This exploration culminates with a poster presentation at the end of the semester, where the students will present their results to each other, to campus stakeholders, and to other members of the department. These projects help students gain exposure to sustainability concepts with special emphasis on how their lifestyles and attitudes affect these issues within the context of campus buildings and operations.

Our new LEED platinum residence hall (2019) has provided great data and questions related to buildings, building features, and performance comparisons between LEED and non-LEED construction and operation.

Students in the Energy Resources class (ERSC 202) explore the evaluation and exploitation, economics, law, and the environmental impact of non-renewable resources and their alternatives, including geothermal, wind, solar, tidal, and ocean thermal power. The course uses the campus as a living laboratory by focusing on the Dickinson Climate Action Plan, analyzing Dickinson's campus energy use, touring campus renewable energy projects and the central energy plant, and conducting personal energy audits. Dickinson's Associate Vice President for Sustainability and Facilities Planning consistently works with the class for two weeks and is able to share the newest climate action project data and greenhouse gas emissions outputs with the students in the course.

Students in the Introductory to Food Studies class (FDST 201) regularly use the Dickinson College Farm as an interdisciplinary field site that examines food through biological, cultural, ecological, economic, and other perspectives. The course researches and analyzes questions of hunger, food production/procurement, inequality, ecology, food labor, health (including psychology), and the diversity of ethical, cultural, and spiritual meanings regarding food. The course includes opportunities for students to engage in active observation, experimentation, and hands-on learning through community partnerships and the College Farm. Students learn about production of food at the farm (harvesting) and where food is sourced to (procurement/sales data analysis) and also distribute food at the community food bank located on campus.

The Hive engages students, staff, and faculty in learning about sustainability problems and solutions through the direct experience of beekeeping, honey production and sales, pollinator habitat, and community building. Dickinson has maintained two European honey bee hives (Apis mellifera) on campus since 2016, and the Center for Sustainability Education leads a team of volunteer members to assist in every step of the process. Ultimately, students learn by doing. The Hive has served as a campus laboratory field site for dozens of academic courses working to study and advocate for pollinator-friendly grounds policies, building and improving native bee habitats on and off campus, and participating in educational programs on the significance of pollinators, habitats, and the challenges facing them. Faculty are active members of the Hive cooperative, and they work alongside students and staff to best utilize the campus living laboratory. This work in and out of the classroom has helped Dickinson's campus grounds become certified as a Bee Campus USA location every year since 2019.

A 2,800-square-foot pollinator garden on campus features hundreds of native pollinator plants and is a vibrant learning environment for students, professors, and classes from many disciplines. The garden is maintained in partnership with Cumberland County (PA) master gardeners with the help of students and college staff. These hands-on learning opportunities are enhanced by workshops and classes hosted by master gardeners for both the college and Carlisle community members. This unique partnership with Dickinson has been used as a model with other college/community partnerships.

The Dickinson Free xChange aims to 1) reduce waste and promote reuse, 2) provide a safe, equitable and accessible space for the exchange of secondhand clothing, accessories, and textbooks to every Dickinsonian, and 3) create awareness of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of consumerism. Educational resources in the space highlight impacts of purchasing new and shipping statistics for our campus. Project volunteers are working to advance sustainability on our campus by provided a textbook exchange, reusable bag exchange program as well as promoting the use of secondhand products.

The Free xChange recognizes the variety of backgrounds, identities, and experiences that exist in our community, and we are dedicated to ensuring that this space remains an inclusive and equitable environment for everyone. Our goal is to make this a space where everyone can find what they need to express who they are or who they want to be.

This space is an active living laboratory for learning both inside and outside of the classroom.

The Center for Sustainability Education has worked with Dickinson faculty to connect coursework and student learning to a Dickinson-sponsored 3.4-mile community bike ride. The Northside Ride brings together community members of all ages to explore our neighborhood on bikes. The ride 1) provides helmets, lights, and locks to neighborhood riders who do not have them 2) promotes bicycles as an effective form of sustainable transportation within and beyond the Northside of Carlisle 3) practices bicycle safety, 4) connects residents to each other and local resources and organizations while building inclusive communities, and 5) builds sustainable communities through biking, education, and partnerships.

Students use the opportunity to learn about local transportation challenges and solutions. Student and faculty volunteers in the event work with community members to advance bike routes in town, accessibility of biking (providing bikes, helmets, and locks, etc.,), and work to create bikable routes to key community resources.

"It's Not Easy Being Green: The Psychology of Sustainability" first-year seminar course used campus projects such as DsonMarket--Dickinson's online marketplace for buying, selling, and trading--to create behavior-change campaigns. The work addressed issues of reuse, waste minimization, ordering less online/reducing shipping, buying local, and the exchange of items on campus. The Center for Sustainability Education served as a consultant for the projects, which resulted in tangible recommendations for our campus and behavior-change campaigns that were implemented on social media and other marketing projects.

The Alliance for Aquatic Resources Monitoring (ALLARM) has provided capacity-building technical assistance to Pennsylvania communities to monitor, protect, and restore local waterways since 1986. ALLARM employs 14 students to work in a living laboratory that provides technical assistance to watershed organizations, community education, and training for volunteer monitoring efforts related to shale gas extraction. ALLARM consistently uses our campus and local community as a living laboratory to explore issues of water quality, water quantity, and storm water management.

Three students serve on the President's Commission on Environmental Sustainability (PCES), working with faculty members, administrators, staff, and alumni to guide at a strategic level all aspects of Dickinson's sustainability initiatives, monitor progress, and advise the president of the college. The students are mentored by the director of the Center for Sustainability Education and have interaction with faculty serving on the committee. As members of the commission, the students contribute to decision-making and planning that advances sustainability at Dickinson, learning first hand about sustainability in higher education and our campus strategies and priorities.

The Dickinson College campus and communities beyond campus borders are living laboratories for learning about sustainability problems and solutions through direct experience. Dickinson students work with each other, faculty, staff, and community members to identify and define problems, understand their causes, develop solutions, and test their ideas.



At Dickinson, characteristics of sustainability learning laboratories include:

Experiential: Students learn through direct experience outside a traditional classroom setting.

Problem-based: Students engage in learning about an authentic problem, challenge, or opportunity with the purpose of exploring, implementing, and assessing actions for advancing sustainability goals.

Place-based: Problems, challenges, opportunities, and actions are examined and understood within the context of a specific place (e.g., a college campus, a community, a local ecosystem).

Systems-based: Students are challenged to apply systems thinking to consider the interplay of environmental, social, cultural, organizational, and economic aspects of problems and actions.

Action oriented: Students become change agents, taking action that will make a campus, community, or other place more sustainable.