Approximately 240 professors, school officials and students made the trek to a 180-acre farm in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, to attend Dickinson College's conference on the role of farming at liberal arts colleges, the first such event to be held in the country.
The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, reports the participants came from 57 private and public universities across the U.S. and in Canada. During the event, current and former Dickinson students, who work the farm, offered lessons from establishing small gardens to running a farm.
Jenn Halpin, the manager of the farm, demonstrated its energy systems including a solar-hot water system for greenhouse heating and a solar-powered vehicle termed the Solar Wheeler, which was designed by a Dickinson professor and constructed by a physics student, according to the news source.
Anna Farb, a current student at the college, offered a student's perspective on the escape that working on the farm offers.
"The farm is where I clear my head, where I get to release all the trivial matters of college life and just think about the soil, the plants and the food," the senior explained.
The website of the Dickinson College Farm notes that 60 percent of the harvest is given to the campus dining hall, with the remainder going to a local food bank and members of the farm's co-op.
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