Students put theory into practice on campus renovations

August 6, 2014

Students in the organization Rebuilding Green, which grew out of the Green Buildings and Green Remodeling course taught last fall, work on the labyrinth they are building west of Boe Memorial Chapel.

In a new environmental studies course taught last fall, students learned about green building and remodeling techniques. This summer, a group of those students is putting that knowledge into action on campus.

The course, called Green Buildings and Green Remodeling, was co-taught by Associate Professor of ChemistryandEnvironmental Studies Paul Jackson 92 and Assistant Vice President for Facilities Pete Sandberg. As their final project for the course, students created a plan to renovate Swanson House, currently used as the Norwegian language honor house, to make it more environmentally sound.

Now theyre carrying out that plan, as well as several other ideas to make the St. Olaf campus more sustainable, such as constructing a labyrinth on the Hill and restoring avegetable garden behind another honor house.

We wanted to create an opportunity for students in the course to take their collaborative ideas to the implementation phase, says Jackson. It is one thing to test them on a paper and another to actually translate their knowledge into practice and to do so creatively and collaboratively.

Matt Johnson 14 (left) and Regan Keller 14 work on the labyrinth they are building west of Boe Memorial Chapel with the organization Rebuilding Green.

Sandberg was able to include a team of summer interns in the budget for the Swanson House renovations, and when he and Jackson proposed the idea to the class, the response was overwhelming.

When we asked the class how many would be interested in exploring such an opportunity, about 90 percent of the students said yes, says Jackson. Out of that interest group we ended up with a group of eight for whom the logistics and interest level worked well.

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Students put theory into practice on campus renovations