Sustainable World
Dickinson has developed a series of sustainability-focused
summer programs in Asia (China), Africa (Cameroon), the Middle East
(Israel), and Europe (Bremen). The programs turn our sites
abroad into living laboratories, allowing students to investigate
different policy approaches to sustainable development and to
compare different challenges to (and attitudes about)
sustainability initiatives in varying political, social, and
cultural contexts.
Destination: Bremen, Germany
For students interested in sustainability, Bremen's draw is
unmistakable. Germany has long been recognized as a world
leader in renewable energy and sustainable development. The
University of Bremen, with its five world-renowned
sustainability-focused research centers, was just awarded the
prestigious "Excellence University" distinction. And
Dickinson has had a study and research center based at UniBremen
for more than twenty-five years, during which time the College has
developed close relationships with leading faculty and researchers
across an array of schools and departments at the University,
as well as deep ties to government and business leaders in the city
and region.
This summer's program, Sustainability
in Europe: Approaches and Case Studies in Sustainable
Development, continued the tradition of close
collaboration; Professor Michael Heiman from the Department of
Environmental Studies at Dickinson team-taught the intensive,
four-week program with Professor Hartmut Köhler from the Ecology
Department at UniBremen. Through case studies, research
projects, guest lectures, meetings with business and government
leaders, and discussions with experts practicing in the field,
Dickinson students developed an advanced understanding of modern
sustainability initiatives in Germany.
In Hamburg, the group visited the "HarborCity," Europe's largest urban development project, and
experienced firsthand how the former harbor area has been transformed
into a modern residential space at a site where dealing with
challenges posed by rising sea levels was just one of the obstacles
encountered in the course of redevelopment. Students
investigated economic tradeoffs related to sustainable tourism on a
three-day trek to the
Wadden Sea Island of Spiekeroog, a UNESCO World Heritage site
and one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world. Other site visits included meetings with project consultants at
UTEC Biogas, a company specializing in the design of biogas 
plants
and sewage reduction systems; discussions with engineers and
energy-sector executives at the offshore wind park assembly
facility in
Bremerhaven; presentations by researchers pioneering
anti-desertification techniques at the ReviTec project
on University of Bremen's campus; and investigations of sustainable
coffee production, fair trade processes, and sustainable economic
growth at the
UTAMTSI coffee company.
Over the course of the program, students developed a greater
understanding of the basic tools and methods necessary to address
sustainability challenges, tools and methods drawn from a diverse
set of academic disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology, economics,
human geography, political science, and policy studies. The
interdisciplinary approach to the material and the case-study pedagogy encouraged students to integrate different disciplinary methods in examining real-world problems. Not only did
students observe how environmental concepts are practically
implemented in Bremen, the surrounding regions, and across
Germany. But throughout the program they compared the
sustainability initiatives of the University of Bremen campus,
Northern Germany, and the EU to those of the Dickinson campus,
Central Pennsylvania, the Mid-Atlantic region, and the U.S.