Integrated Farm Visit - Student Post by Keara

Programs for this blog post

Climate Change Mitigation

Authored By:

Cailey Oehler

Hello from all of the beautiful souls currently living life to the fullest in Costa Rica! Today we learned about sustainable farming agriculture, as we took a short hike to the farm here at CIEE. We not only got to see the previous farm “El Nino” but we got an in depth tour of the newest 10 month old farm as well! A large factor of the cause of Climate Change is the production of Methane, a greenhouse gas that is released into the atmosphere. The largest amount of methane is produced from animal waste, more specifically in mass breading productions. Here at CIEE, we use the best possible techniques to confirm that almost everything is being reused and not wasted, therefore being sustainable for the environment. 


To summarize the techniques and processes that we use we first start with our leftover food which is then fed to the very friendly pigs that we have here on campus. The pigs’ waste is drained down to our bio-digester which is a system that separates the methane, solids and liquids into three sections. The methane is stored in a giant ballon which is transferred to the kitchen; there it is used to heat up the food for cooking. So unique and source full! The solids are stored for roughly three years and then dug up to be used for fertilizer. The liquids run through a series of filters and eventually are stored in a tarp “pool”. The water at this point is clean and used for agricultural purposes, we water a plant that looks sort of like “long grass”, which is fed to the cows. The cows here are also living lawn mowers! They are rotated throughout campus and eat simply the tips of the grass and are distributed elsewhere that way the grass does not die. Not only are they absolutely adorable and great to look at, but they also stomp the dead roots into the ground; they are great multitaskers. 

Later that evening, we got to embrace our curiosity about the plethora of different leafs and flowers that are present here and our creativity in a art project! Our task was to collect as many or as little of interesting looking leafs, flowers and other pieces of nature. We then we’re supplied with paper and lots of tools to create a collage, a card or whatever our heart desired with our collection. Our entire groups turned out beautiful! We ended the night with a very fun stimulation game that was created by program leader Cathy. Each cohort was a wolf pact with a designated Alfa who directed the rest of the group, our mission was to find as much food (glow sticks & colored tape) by a set time. There were predators with flashlights, a very loud whistle and students sprinting in plastic ponchos to get to glow sticks in the wet grass… Long story short we really embraced our inner wolf and connected as a group that much more, and showed that we are very, very competitive.