Experiential Learning in Action: Carleton’s Alternative Spring Break 2025

When most people think of spring break, they picture beaches, sun-soaked selfies, and maybe a little too much sunscreen. But for 21 Carleton students, spring break looked a little different—in the best possible way. Thanks to the Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) and the generous support of the Julianne Williams Memorial Fund, these students took part in week-long Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trips focused on ethical community engagement through hands-on, experiential learning. Each year the CCCE partners with local organizations to create these immersive opportunities, allowing students to explore pressing community issues while making a tangible impact. This spring, participants joined one of two trips: the Local Food and Community trip and the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center trip in Finland, Minnesota.

Food and Community: Growing Change in Northfield

The Food and Community group stayed in Northfield and worked with community partners at Sharing Our Roots farm, the Community Action Center, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Organics Recycling Facility, and Curbside Compost. At Sharing Our Roots, participants cloned red twig dogwood sticks, toured the farm, and seeded in the greenhouse. Aurora Juarez ‘26 learned about how “farming can be inclusive to more people,” and that the “core human relationships needed to [best treat the land] gave [her] more hope about the possibility of a more sustainable and just future for agriculture.” 

Photo 1: Bucket of cloned red twig dogwood sticks

Photo 2: Local Food and Community ASB participants listening to Nic Nelson with Sharing Our Roots explain how the organization works and how to clone red twig dogwood sticks

Photo 3: Theo Borowski ‘25 on a tour of Sharing Our Roots, posing in front of the cows on the farm

Students on the Local Food and Community trip also toured the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Organics Recycling Center, where they learned about the process of composting. They got to measure the temperature within the composting piles–which can be up to 180 degrees fahrenheit! Alternative Spring Break participants also visited Curbside Compost, a small local cooperative that promotes composting in Northfield by offering weekly compost collection services, which is now building a new composting facility in Northfield. Upon learning about how organic waste can fill up landfills and high amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, Theo Borowski ‘25 explains how he is now thinking “more deeply about how quick [Carleton students] are to throw away food here at Carleton.”

Photo: Aurora Juarez ‘26 measuring the temperature of a compost pile at SMSC Organics Recycling Facility

Finally, throughout spring break the Local Food and Community participants worked with the Community Action Center by managing and restocking one of the food shelves in Northfield, and completing Cub Food Recovery Network runs. Many students, including Borowski ‘25, “found the work at the Northfield food shelf to be particularly rewarding” because it not only “provides food for our neighbors, but it offers community and other resources to holistically support those in need.” Juarez ‘26 adds that participants “witnessed how students play a larger role in being able to maintain the operations for some organizations through necessary volunteer work.”

Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center: Learning from the land up North

The Wolf Ridge trip worked with the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, a nonprofit organization in Finland, Minnesota that fosters awareness of the natural world by providing lifelong learning experiences in nature. On this trip, students participated in a variety of activities from community building to farm work to classes. Along with completing ropes courses and making pizza dough from wheat previously harvested, one community building activity was cross country skiing at night, culminating in a beautiful view of the northern lights!

Photo 1: Wolf Ridge ASB participants in gear for the ropes course. From left to right: Hebatallah Sharafeldin ‘25, Kian Hammer ‘27, Sophia Bastian ‘26, Fátima Reyes Paniagua ‘25, Barinamene Nwike ‘25, Adele Fredericks ‘25, Dev Kharbanda ‘27, Elijah Ndosi ‘28, Alexis Bell-Bronzan ‘28, Hanane Akeel ‘25, Stephen Benjegerdes ‘26, and Grace Clemen ‘28. 

Photo 2: Northern lights seen at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center

Participants supported Wolf Ridge ELC operations by adding plastic to high tunnels, shoveling snow, building new compost bins out of wooden pallets, and food processing. All of these activities showed students “first-hand how the farm prioritizes reuse and recycling of the items they are using” (Adele Fredericks ‘25). Participants also had the opportunity to tour other farms near Wolf Ridge, including the Agroecology Center and Round River Farm and their mushroom log cultivations and greenhouse. Visiting nearby farms allowed students to see how “having farms working in a variety of ways in the town of Finland contributed to a strong farming ecosystem” (Fredericks ‘25). The final part of programming at Wolf Ridge ELC was observing classes for children in surrounding public schools, including Birds!, Beginning Orienteering, Surviving Winter, and Forest Ecology. During the Birds! class, students tried to have birds land on their heads!

Photo 1: Wolf Ridge ASB participants adding plastic to high tunnels

Photo 2: Dev Kharbanda ‘27 at a birding lesson at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center

The 2025 Alternative Spring Break trips were a great success. According to Fátima Reyes, “the work we were doing often required us to step outside of our comfort zone… but it was made enjoyable by everyone’s genuine curiosity, collaboration, and positive attitude. I am sure that the lessons learned… will continue to accompany us as we return to our lives on Carleton’s campus and beyond.” We are very grateful for the Julianne Williams Fund and every community partner who took the time to show us the work that they do in our community. 

Student Spotlight: Adele Fredericks ‘25

Adele Fredericks ‘25 has been involved with Alternative Spring Break every year for the last 4 years! She started as a participant on the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning trip her first year, and has been a trip leader every year since. Fredericks decided to join the Wolf Ridge trip her first year at Carleton because she was “curious about the work that environmental learning centers do… and how education fits into the social change ecosystem of Minnesota.” That first trip was the first time Fredericks had ever seen Lake Superior! 

Every year after, Fredericks continued to learn and develop new or deepen prior relationships with other students and staff at Wolf Ridge. On some trips, her group thought “more about the idea of place (what it meant for Wolf Ridge to be in Northern Minnesota), whereas other years, [they] were thinking more about ideas of sustainability (and how education fits into sustainability).” She also continued to learn “how education can fit into a broader social change ecosystem… and what potential career paths in a field like environmental education could look like.” Her second year on the Wolf Ridge trip was the first time she saw the Northern Lights and skied!

Next year, Fredericks will be part of the Graduate Naturalist program at Wolf Ridge ELC, where she will take classes to learn about environmental education and gain teaching experience. She is very excited for the program because she believes that “environmental education is important for helping students build an informed lens through which they view the world… and learning outdoors is incredibly important for students to build their skills in teamwork, creativity, critical thinking, and hands-on experience.”

Get involved!

Alternative Spring Breaks are just one piece of Carleton’s intimate and often lasting partnerships with community organizations. For example, Sharing Our Roots recruits Carleton work-study employees, summer interns, and volunteers. The NCEC Food Shelf is staffed by CCCE Food and Environmental Justice and Health and Belonging Fellows and receives fresh food from the student-run Food Recovery Network. The SMSC Organics Recycling Facility is the final destination for most of Carleton’s compostable waste, where it is recycled as highly nutritious fertilizer and mulch. Many of these organizations also team up with Carleton faculty to create ACE courses like Studio Art 230: Ceramic Throwing, the class responsible for Empty Bowls and raising tens of thousands of dollars for local food shelves every year.

Are you a student who wants to get involved with Alternative Spring Break? Join us next year! Applications for trip leaders and participants go live over the winter, and we’d love to see you apply! Please reach out to Danielle Trajano (dtrajano@carleton.edu) with any questions.