What will an ambitious group of Virginia Tech Honors College students achieve when they are asked to devote their efforts to serving the community by making their campus more sustainable? Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 The Honors Service Learning Course sought to answer that question.
The Honors College has offered service-learning opportunities in the past, but like many similar courses outside of Virginia Tech, the COVID-19 pandemic has made community-engaged teaching and learning difficult. It turned out to be. With support from a VT Engage Faculty Fellow Development Grant, Rachael Budowl, University Associate Professor and Community Engagement Leader in the College of Honors, sought to revitalize and reimagine the course.
This course leverages core partnerships with the Virginia Tech Office of Sustainability and the Office of Energy Management to address Goal 10 of the 2020 Virginia Tech Climate Action Pledge: the creation of the Climate Action Living Institute (CALL). Masu. In this course, students partner with mentors from the Office of Sustainability, and students work directly to implement a semester-long project that supports the development of the Climate Action Living Laboratory framework.
“The Honors Service Learning course opened my eyes to how I can be a part of real change on campus. Participating in the Climate Action Living Laboratory has given me the opportunity to explore how, as a student, I can collaborate with faculty and staff. I truly valued the opportunity to collaborate with my mentors on projects that the Office of Sustainability could leverage to develop CALL. ,” said Vera O’Brien, a student in the class and an intern in the Climate Action Living Laboratory.
The Fall 2023 course began by helping students create a vision statement for the Climate Action Living Laboratory with and for their mentors. “The Virginia Tech Climate Action Living Laboratory is a collaborative framework that integrates students and faculty with staff to achieve the goals of Virginia Tech's Climate Action Pledge. CALL is a collaborative framework for innovative research, teaching and learning. , through service, we are building a sustainable and equitable future for our campus and surrounding community.”
Over two semesters, students have supported numerous projects that build a strong foundation for the Climate Action Living Laboratory. This includes, for example, a series of spotlights on past teaching, learning, and research projects aimed at achieving specific climate action goals at Virginia Tech. Interview operational and administrative staff to develop a menu of priority projects. And we are planning a showcase event to celebrate the Climate Action Living Laboratory framework and further engage students, faculty, and staff across the university. This project resulted in tangible deliverables that lay the foundation for further development by future students, faculty, and staff involved in the Climate Action Living Laboratory.
For the students in the class, this served two purposes. In addition to learning about sustainability broadly and specifically at university, this project-based structure allows students to act as sustainability professionals in training and gain real-world experience. Community-engaged action in pursuit of meaningful change. Another aspect of the course is regular targeted field trips to enhance project-based learning. Through site visits such as the Catawba Sustainability Center, Homefield Farm, and Virginia Tech's chilled water plant, students learn about important sustainability issues that impact the communities of which they are a part.
These course features demonstrate the Honors College's commitment to experiential learning and interdisciplinary collaboration. By focusing on these types of project-based learning experiences, Honors College courses allow students to collaborate on real-world problems in an interdisciplinary environment and feel the tangible impact of their work. It serves as a platform for
“By directly participating in the immediate campuses and communities in which we live, students learn about the immediate challenges of their lives personally, professionally, academically, and collectively with others. You will leave the course armed with a framework for tackling sustainability challenges. This course will move your learning beyond direct service to deeper community-engaged learning. , we aim to serve and collaborate with mentors over the long term, ideally in a more equitable and less burdensome manner, ideally this course will maintain the partnership from semester to semester to greater impact. ,” said Budl.
The Honors College is positioned to serve as a testing ground for these types of equitable partnerships across campus and the community. Because of our relatively small class sizes, faculty dedicated to the principles of experiential learning and interdisciplinary collaboration, and the high quality and motivation of our students, the Honors College supports partnerships such as those featured in this course. You can develop effective methodologies that can be piloted and scaled up. across the university and beyond.
With support from the VT Engage Faculty Fellow Development Grant, Budore will serve as a peer mentor, participate in research, and support the implementation of further Climate Action Living Laboratories, specifically the planning and hosting of Climate Action Living Laboratories 2 We were able to hire an intern for our Climate Action Living Laboratory. A showcase held as part of the Earth Week festival.
Hosted by the Office of Sustainability and Honors Service Learning students over the fall and spring semesters, the showcase featured a variety of presentations by students, faculty and staff from across the university. During the poster session, students from service-learning courses, student interns from the sustainability department, and others presented projects related to the Climate Action Living Laboratory and campus-wide climate action.
Faculty from across the university participated in a panel discussion about integrating climate action into research and teaching. Faculty members who helped create Virginia Tech's greenhouse gas emissions inventory also presented their research recontextualized within the framework of the Climate Action Living Laboratory. At the end of the showcase, staff and faculty facilitated activities that helped participants envision future Climate Action Living Laboratory partnerships and collaborations to support a sustainable and equitable future.
