CELL News
Our CELL News section provides information, updates, and feedback for past, current, and future CELL students. A CELL experience is more than an exciting “study abroad” program. The purpose of any CELL experience is to ignite a life-long commitment to living sustainably and to giving and receiving support for this commitment through community. Students are introduced to concepts of sustainability during their semester abroad program, but more importantly, once they return home, they learn how to employ these concepts in their own lives through living sustainably and through implementing sustainability action plans in various communities.
Recent Blog Posts
Seeing Home
It’s Friday night, and I’m sitting in the laundry room, watching my denim and fleece spin lazily in the dryer. I’m trying to distill three challenging, crazy, heartwarming, brilliant weeks into one overarching narrative, but my mind is preoccupied with the thrill of...
What Does it Mean to Engage with Nature? (Reflections on a Snowy Sit-Spot)
Check watch: 4:05. Lie down under a short but sturdy blue spruce. Feel the snow falling on my face, leaving it close to numb, but with enough feeling to recognize when each new flake lands on my cheek. Find myself wishing it would just go all the way numb. Quickly...
Biodynamic Farming Adventures
We have visited a number of places so far in Iceland, one of these being a biodynamic farm. The farm houses sheep, chickens, and cows, and produces cheese, milk, and various organics from the crops they harvest in the summer. The principles of the biodynamic farm...
Reflecting in Nature
Friday, February 13th 5:30am. My alarm goes off and it’s time to start another day at Sólheimar. After breakfast, morning meeting, and class, we went to the village’s developing forest. Our instructions were simple: find a secluded spot and take in your surroundings....
Refuge From a Windy Night
Last week, we were given the assignment of finding an hour to sit outdoors and have time to reflect and ponder on the experiences we've had here so far and what we've learned. As I walked out the door of our house at around 7:30 pm the evening before our reflective...