bwin体育 puts green principles to the test as students engage with 运费农场, hydropower facility

An innocuous shipping container behind the 校友 House has turned into a passion project for bwin体育 College’s Environmental Studies program.

The “运费农场” is exactly what it sounds like: A farm inside of a shipping container that looks like it should be on the back of an 18-wheeler barreling down the highway. Take one step inside and you’ll see something completely different. 

Plants in the 运费农场 grow vertically in towers which line the inside of the container. The container holds 150 towers, and water is filtered from the top and bottom of each tower. Water is recycled and re-used, with students monitoring the nutrients content. Plants grow free of pesticides and year-round — this harvest of lettuce will be fully mature in December. 

“I grew up on a farm, this has always been a passion of mine,” said Macey Dukes, class of 2024. Dukes’ senior project will be related to the 运费农场. “这是一种创新的农业方式, I think it’ll be essential in future years with climate change.”

Dukes leads a team of four students — Abby Brainard (class of 2025), 莉莉·瓦格纳(2024年)和罗克珊娜·波帕(2024年), while Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Jean Faye also assists.

Each student has a different story as to how they got involved — but they were all intrigued by the name alone. 

“我有一个班，博士. Faye and he asked us if anyone would be willing to help out on the 运费农场, 我想，‘这是什么鬼东西?布雷纳德说. “他带我去看了，我觉得太酷了, they grew flowers and I thought — imagine all the cool things you can do with this.”

Brainard is an Environmental Studies major and hopes to be an environmental engineer with a focus on sustainability. 

“Agriculture was always interesting for me but I never really considered it as something I would find myself doing,”她说。. “自从做了这件事，它就融入了我上课的方式. I take chemistry classes and I get to blend my love for that with my love for helping the planet. 这是我一直在研究的成果.”

The 运费农场 was gifted to bwin体育 thanks to a generous donor, and the plan is for students to be the primary caretakers of the facility. 现在, the students cultivate lettuce and sell it to Parkhurst 餐厅 on campus — a great way to sustainably source the food students eat, 公爵说. 他们计划在未来扩展到更多的蔬菜.

Waggoner said the 运费农场 is a real-world application of what he learns in class. He plans on pursuing a career in sports turf management — think golf courses, baseball diamonds or football fields — after graduation.

“我正在与化学品打交道, learning to control the electrical conductivity or the EC of the water,他说. “水的pH值非常重要. 土壤很少, so a lot of the plant's nutrients come from the pH of the water and what we put in.”

公爵说 she planned on a medical career when she first came to bwin体育 — but didn’t want to walk the pre-med path to get there.

“在我的课程中，我做了很多探索, this is how I stumbled upon environmental studies — I fell in love with it, 我觉得我在改变世界,”她说。.