Community Service-Learning

Problem solving and skills training

The UBC Farm is a thriving site for experiential, community-based experiential learning on campus. With a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity, the farm hosts community-service learning (CSL) and community-based research (CBR) initiatives led by numerous UBC faculties as well as other local educational institutions and organizations. These include UBC’s faculties of Applied Science, Forestry, and Land and Food Systems, as well as BCIT and the UBC Community Learning Initiative.

Hundreds of students have performed thousands of hours of CSL on the farm for a variety of innovative and exciting projects, including:

• design/build projects such as mobile market stand trailer and the Vancouver Native Health Society  smokehouse
  

  Students building a mobile market trailer

• design/build projects for novel field equipment such as a dry bean sheller, egg washer,  and bicycle-powered cultivator
• environmental remediation in old research plots
• mason bee house construction
• cover crop biomass and nutrient testing and assessment
• establishing a surface and sub-surface water quality testing and monitoring protocol
• drafting educational signage, brochures, and other materials
• writing scripts for online farm educational videos
• setting up livestock (poultry, cattle) shelters and ranges
• field operations maintenance and management tasks

Ongoing community-based programs at the UBC Farm that deepen UBC’s engagement with the community and contribute to a civil and sustainable society align closely with the university’s goals of advancing community-based experiential learning (pdf), and also with UBC’s overarching strategic plan, Place and Promise.