Lafayette College
AC-5: Immersive Experience

1) Lafayette College Gateway Career Center offers many opportunities for learning about sustainability. They provide shadowing opportunities at places such as:
The Nurture Nature Center (a center for community learning about local environmental risks)
The Trustees of Reservations (the oldest land trust in the world, founded to preserve, for the public use and enjoyment, places of scenic, ecological, and historic value in Massachusetts)
TerraTherm (working on environmental remediation)
Kleinfelder, Inc. (environmental engineering and consulting firm with a focus on water and wastewater)
Lowe's Home Companies (within Sustainability Data Analysis)
Ramboll (environmental consulting firm, with a focus on compliance with environmental regulations and remediation)

2) Interim Trips Abroad
The two-week winter Interim trip to New Zealand, taught by Tamara Carley and Dru Germanoski, explores the interdisciplinary nature of environmental science through scientific observation/data collection, discussion, and readings. The course intended to help students develop a strong understanding of how natural and developed environments come together, focusing on geology, water, climate, and life.

Additionally, in May 2022 a new three-week course was launched in Italy, from Sicily and Naples in the south, through Rome, and into the fertile Tuscan region, where 18 students experienced active volcanoes, organic farms, food movement organizations, and socially active culinary institutes. The first-time course was led by Tamara Carley, associate professor of geology, and Benjamin Cohen, associate professor and chair of engineering studies, who wanted to combine their interests and teach how agriculture and geology are intimately connected.

Also in summer 2022, 18 students and their guides—Larry Malinconico, associate professor of geology and geophysics, and David Sunderlin, associate professor of geology and department head—spent nearly three weeks learning, traveling, camping, and rafting through national parks in Arizona and Utah to learn about processes of sedimentation, igneous intrusion, and erosion, the group wound its way through the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Grand Staircase of the Escalante, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Shiprock, Meteor Crater, and Petrified Forest.

In winter 2023, twenty students from a variety of majors explored the coupled evolution of life and land in Ecuador. This experience allowed students to study complex geological processes, witness atmospheric and oceanographic phenomena and patterns, and to see the results of biological evolution in diverse ecosystem settings—all directly in the field.

3) Alternative School Break Service Trip
In January 2020, an Alternative School Break trip went to Honduras to support female leaders in creating business plans and developing sustainable projects in their communities. The mission of Leadership Mission International in Honduras was to develop a new generation of ethical women leaders by providing exceptional academics, leadership, and community development experiences. One of LMI’s long-term goals is to become substantially self-sustainable, and the campus includes over 30 vegetable gardens that are cared for and harvested by students year-round.

Other URLs with relevant information include:
https://studyabroad.lafayette.edu/getting-started-and-applying/lafayette-interim-and-summer-programs/
https://news.lafayette.edu/2022/07/12/new-course-connects-agriculture-food-and-geology-in-italy/
https://sites.lafayette.edu/asb/trips/
https://news.lafayette.edu/2022/07/11/geology-course-takes-students-on-national-park-adventure/