About CELL

What is CELL’s philosophy?

CELL believes that problems can be solved through the application of critical inquiry, imagination, ingenuity, and individual and community commitment. CELL further believes that true education should spur an inner transformation that impels life-changing action. CELL’s educational programs will stir you to think more deeply and more broadly about yourself, your community, and your environment. CELL’s experiential programs not only increase your awareness, knowledge, and skills; more importantly, they will empower you to “…be the change you wish to see in the world” (Gandhi).

What are some of our core educational values? The following principles provide a foundation upon which our programs are developed:

• Learning is not a spectator sport. As a participant in a CELL semester program: you will learn by doing, you will be challenged to integrate classroom knowledge with real-life applications, you will get muddy as you hike to the top of a volcano or through a rainforest.
  
• Learning is not selfish. Through service-learning experiences, you will expand your understanding and appreciation of yourself, your host culture, and your environment, while, for example, helping to install a solar electric system for a remote rural village or working hand-in-hand with community partners to build a biodigester for renewable fuel production, or assisting with the restoration of endangered sea turtles.
  
• Learning requires understanding wholes as well as parts. CELL’s semester programs are interdisciplinary. Students learn critical-thinking skills while examining various sides of issues, such as, the need of rural villagers to cut down trees to obtain wood for cooking and heating versus the need to conserve the trees in order to maintain the biodiversity of sensitive rainforest habitats. You will learn about win-win solutions that benefit local communities and the environment.
  
• The purpose of learning is for an individual to construct his or her own meaning, not just memorize “right” answers or someone else’s meaning. A key component of all semester programs is assisting participants in designing and implementing individual action plans that build upon what you learn during the semester program and provide an opportunity for you to apply creative, systemic solutions to environmental problems back home.

As part of our invitation to join us in being the change, our programs spur you to take an in-depth look at the global picture. Our world is in the midst of an environmental crisis. As Lester Brown, founder of World Watch and Earth Policy Institutes, so urgently states in Plan B 3.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, "Our global economy is outgrowing the capacity of the earth to support it... Forests are shrinking, water tables are falling, and fisheries are declining. We are using up oil at a pace that leaves little time to plan beyond peak oil, and we are discharging greenhouse gases into the atmosphere faster than nature can absorb them... If we cannot stabilize population and if we cannot stabilize climate, there is not an ecosystem on earth we can save. The good news is that the steps needed to save our planet are being taken now in some countries. It will require, however, a significant educational commitment and an unprecedented degree of international cooperation and leadership to stabilize global threats such as population growth and global warming." 

Lester Brown further observes that we have created an environmental bubble economy – one whose economic output is artificially inflated by overconsumption of earth’s resources. For example, as Brown explains, “the world grain harvest has been inflated by overpumping aquifers, a practice that virtually guarantees a future drop in production when aquifers are depleted.” Plan B is a massive mobilization to deflate the economic bubble before it bursts and provides a new vision of a world eco-economy, “a way of sustaining economic progress worldwide, an alternative to continuing environmental deterioration and eventual economic decline.”

CELL recognizes Plan B as a practical blueprint that can be put into action today, and we have incorporated these principles into our semester programs. We believe that we have the technologies to reverse environmental decline by replacing the fossil-fuel-based, throwaway economy with a new economy - one powered by abundant sources of wind, solar energy, hydropower, biofuels, geothermal resources, and conservation. But we need the will to do so.

CELL believes in a new environmentalism, a new approach that understands that business, environmental, and social interests can conjoin in an integrated, harmonious system. We invite your partnership in helping society achieve a tipping point toward a sustainable lifestyle and healthy environment. Want to be a part of the change? Contact us. We welcome your partnership!