This year marks the 25th anniversary of Carolina’s field site program. Launched in 2001 through a partnership of Carolina’s Study Abroad Office, the environment, ecology and energy program and the UNC Institute for the Environment, the initiative created three new field sites in North Carolina and abroad. Students spend a semester immersed in environmentally significant locations where they learn and work in the environments they study in the classroom.

“The Carolina environmental field site network has provided a quarter century of transformational immersive experiences for undergraduates,” said Mike Piehler, director of the Institute for the Environment and Carolina’s chief sustainability officer. “Learning about complex issues around humans and the environment is a remarkable challenge and one that is best undertaken immersed in the environments.”

Professor Drew Coleman spoke of the impact of the field sites.

“Students gain practical experience in designing and implementing projects and in effectively communicating the results of their work to stakeholders. I cannot imagine a more practical and impactful way to prepare students to contribute after they graduate from Carolina,” said Coleman, chair of the environment, ecology and energy program and professor in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ Earth, marine and environmental sciences department.

A program takes root

At the program’s inception, Bill Glaze, founding director of the program that preceded the IE, and his successor, Doug Crawford-Brown, wanted to offer Carolina undergraduates opportunities to take more advanced classes in the environments they were studying. They also wanted them to be able to interact with the people and communities impacted by the unique challenges of their region.

The original sites — the Thailand Field Site in Bangkok and North Carolina’s sites at Highlands and the Outer Banks — established a valuable program that continues to thrive.

Today’s four permanent field sites are all in North Carolina: Highlands, Outer Banks, Morehead City or Chapel Hill at the on-campus Sustainable Triangle Field Site. Each offers a distinct focus and ecosystem, spanning mountains, coastlines and urban landscapes and relies on partnerships with the community.

Experience at the sites enchant the participants and forever bind them to their home for the semester. The hands-on research, real-world environmental problem-solving and connections with the community are all hallmarks of Carolina’s field site experience.

Outer Banks Field Site

The Outer Banks Field Site is hosted in partnership with East Carolina University’s Coastal Studies Institute on Roanoke Island. It combines multidisciplinary study of the sustainable management of coastal resources with the ecology and culture of North Carolina’s coastline and estuaries. The site also works closely with the Community Advisory Board, an integral partner that advises on environmental issues and opportunities, mentors students, hosts interns and connects students with community resources.

“When tackling environmental problems, you’re not working in a perfect lab setting. You’re in the real world, where many complexities add to both the challenges and the solutions,” said Lindsay Dubbs, Outer Banks Field Site director.

One of Dubbs’ favorite experiences is the students’ first kayak trip through the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge to Lake Drummond near the North Carolina-Virginia border. Traveling along a narrow feeder ditch that empties into the lake, they emerge from the swamp into an expansive stretch of open water surrounded by cypress trees.

“It’s just this remarkable kind of reveal of a system,” Dubbs said. “It’s always different. Sometimes there are huge waves on it. Sometimes it’s so flat, sometimes it is so windy, and the students are almost crying because they’re so exhausted by trying to paddle.”

Highlands Field Site

The Highlands Field Site is hosted in partnership with Western Carolina University’s Highlands Biological Station. The site explores the ways humans interact with their environment in the southern Appalachian region.

“It’s such an incredible opportunity,” said Rada Petric, director of the Highlands Field Site. “I’m so glad there was the foresight to work with the Highlands Biological Station to establish a field site here because it is an incredibly special place.”

Petric kicks off the fall semester taking students on a three-day field trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where students reconnect with nature before getting into their coursework, research and internships.

“Seeing the students get back in touch with nature and explore that curiosity is one of my favorite things of all time,” she said.

A recent research theme has been exploring microplastics and how they got into the pristine ecosystems of western North Carolina. They also study human impacts on small mammals, like bats, shrews and mice.

Petric is always amazed by the students’ growth by the end of the semester.

“I love when they give these end-of-semester research talks because you can feel their confidence,” she said. “You can feel how much time and effort went into that and how much they have grown as individuals as well as researchers and students.”

A recent research theme has been exploring microplastics and how they got into the pristine ecosystems of western North Carolina. They also study human impacts on small mammals, like bats, shrews and mice.

Petric is always amazed by the students’ growth by the end of the semester.

“I love when they give these end-of-semester research talks because you can feel their confidence,” she said. “You can feel how much time and effort went into that and how much they have grown as individuals as well as researchers and students.”

Morehead City Field Site

Launched in 2003, the Morehead City Field Site partners with the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences to host students every fall. The students dive into estuarine ecology and the human impacts on those systems.

“For a lot of the students, it’s the first time that they’ve actually done scientific research where they’re working on a project and no one knows the answer to the questions. They are addressing issues that we don’t have the answer to. That’s what makes it exciting,” said field site director Nathan Hall.

One of the site’s field trips takes students to an estuary to collect water samples that they take back to examine in the lab.

“It’s always really fun to show them plankton under a microscope,” Hall said. “It’s one thing to talk about them in class, but to actually see them swimming around and to talk about them as moving plants is really cool.”

Many students return to do research, pursue graduate studies or work as a lab technician.

Hall emphasized the partnerships that make the field sites work, especially in Morehead City, where there is a hub of environmental management, education, advocacy and research organizations. The institute’s faculty and administration are involved in day-to-day operations, working to offer other experiences to students through organizations like the Duke University Marine Lab, NC State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, N.C. Coastal Federation, N.C. Maritime Museum, N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores and others.

Sustainable Triangle Field Site

The newest addition to the field site network, launched in 2008, is the Sustainable Triangle Field Site in Chapel Hill. Originally focused on urban planning, the site has since broadened its scope to center on sustainability and resilience. In partnership with Sustainable Carolina — the University’s hub for campus sustainability efforts — students remain on campus and collaborate on projects designed to make a tangible impact in the surrounding community. Unlike the other field sites, which take place in the fall, this one runs during the spring.

Antonia (Toni) Sebastian has served as director of the Sustainable Triangle Field Site since 2023.

“The Sustainable Triangle Field Site really thinks about the local environment, the local communities, and engages in topics that can be addressed from here on campus in the Triangle,” Sebastian said. “They’re solving problems that don’t have answers. You can’t just look up or ask ChatGPT. They’re messy, complicated, multifaceted — and that’s the point.”

Recently, students researched and provided recommendations on Bolin Creek flooding, which caused disruptions to the Chapel Hill community and businesses. They also mapped urban heat islands on campus and created a website to communicate their findings and recommendations. Last year, they examined natural spaces and their connectivity in the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro and made policy recommendations to community leaders on how to manage them.

“Learning by doing — authentic projects with real-world impacts — that’s what this class gives you that a lecture class doesn’t,” Sebastian said.

Transformative to Tar Heels

The field site program has been transformative to students over the years, including Noah Kittner ’11. He was inspired by his time as an undergraduate at the Thailand Field Site to learn more about solar energy and energy storage. He went on to get a Fulbright scholarship in Thailand and then a doctorate from the University of California, Berkley. His work has informed energy planning discussions on renewable energy with the World Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Kosovo. Now he applies that expertise at Carolina as IE’s new director of the Energy Transition Initiative.

Most field site students major in environmental studies, but they can come from any major. They emerge from the program shaped by the community and the environmental challenges they sought to address. They gain a deep understanding of the issues and the place they lived in for the semester.

“We’ve worked hard to stay interdisciplinary — bringing together science, policy, law and management — because that’s how environmental challenges actually work,” Dubbs said.

Celebrations of this milestone will take place throughout the year. Follow the Institute for the Environment on social media for a series chronicling 25 people affiliated with the field sites over the years. The Outer Banks Field Site will host a weekend of celebration Sept. 18-20.