Watertown\’s Sam Allen will travel to Denmark to study this fall.
Watertown’s Sam Allen will be headed overseas to take part in implementing a sustainable energy system.
Allen, a third-year student at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, will be heading to Denmark with a class taught by COA faculty and led by COA students in a collaboration with the Rockland-based Island Institute under the auspices of a new philanthropic arm called The Fund for Maine Islands, according to the announcement from the college.
During the student trip Sept. 22 through Oct. 4, to Samsø Energy Academy on Samsø Island, Denmark, Allen will study firsthand how Samsø, a farming and tourist community, became carbon negative through efficiency upgrades, wind and solar power production, biomass heating and other elements of a renewable energy portfolio, the announcement said.
“Bringing education beyond the classroom and taking on real problems elevates the learning to a new level and merges thought and action,” said Jay Friedlander, the Sharpe-McNally Chair of Green and Socially Responsible Business and a co-instructor for the course. “Students are more engaged and have depth of understanding far beyond the textbook.”
Allen and every participant will have the opportunity to develop an energy project that reflects the needs and priorities of their own communities, the announcement said. Sample project topics include: a community-owned solar farm, implementing island-wide energy efficiency, an island wide alternative transportation initiative, accessing alternative heating fuels and systems, and developing energy-focused eco-tourism.
For more information on College of the Atlantic, visit http://www.coa.edu.