A Living Laboratory

        On our first full day at EARTH, Professor Nick Evers, the Director of the International Academic Relations Office, said something to us that really resonated with me. He told us that EARTH University functions as a “living laboratory” for the students. EARTH is so much more than just a university, at least in comparison to the traditional institutions that I’ve become accustomed to in the United States. This campus is here first and foremost to serve the students, to give every one of them the opportunity to experience the diverse programs happening on campus, and to eventually take charge of a project of their own. To that end, EARTH really is literally a laboratory for the students. It seems that everything that is designed here, from the buildings to the farms, is designed with either student input or with the idea of how students could utilize it for future research.

This morning, we witnessed this living laboratory in person when we joined the students on one of their weekly work days. Every Wednesday and Saturday morning, students are required to work out on the farms for five hours. The students rotate through different programs every couple of weeks, giving them the opportunity to experience all the systems. Then, by their second year, students get to choose areas that they are most interested in to focus on and potentially research. Today, Chatham students ended up at the Integrated Organic Farm, exploring the organic research projects. It was amazing to see the diversity of projects going on in such a small space! Shade grown cacao. Black fly larvae. Composting. A seed bank. Tilapia. Sugar Cane. Bananas. Livestock. And I’m positive I missed several somethings, as everywhere I looked, there was something fascinating to see!

Seed Saving Project

Mandala Garden

EARTH students sifting compost.

Compost crew including EARTH and Chatham students.

Feyisola tending the vermiculture bin.

Scott enjoying the Costa Rican rain!

For most of the morning, I ended up in the cacao fields helping to prune damaged and diseased pods from the trees. There were so many interesting things about the operation, but the most striking part of the entire operation to me was the fact that it was completely student run and operated, and so organized! There were dozens of trees and several varieties. Each tree was tagged and the students were keeping detailed records of how many pods were on each tree, how many were diseased, and other details such as the location of a wasp hive that gave one of the Chatham students a slight pause. I had assumed that there was some sort of detailed research project on nutrient uptake going on already, and that was why they were being so methodical. It would have been so much faster just to hand out pruners and have everyone take a row….but we worked in teams and carefully examined each tree.  They were a few small research projects taking place on a few of the trees, but the real purpose for the notes was to give the students a chance to create their own research if they wanted, with a solid base of research and methodology in place. How incredible! Everything EARTH does seems to have a purpose, and it seems that one of the underlying principles they have when designing systems is to give students more than just the chance to learn, but to become leaders.

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Throughout the day, I found several other examples of ways that EARTH strives to foster an environment of student leadership and development when we toured through the organic garden and later went to see the livestock farm. I think that Professor Evers hit the nail on the head when he called this campus a living laboratory, and as Chatham’s Falk School of Sustainability is beginning to develop, I look forward to bringing this idea to the table.

-Christine Kuhn