UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Last year, Penn State’s Sustainability Institute took over the Local Climate Action Program (LCAP), originally started by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP). This program partners students with local governments across the state to create greenhouse-gas-emissions inventories and work towards policy solutions for climate and sustainability related problems.
LCAP is looking for applicants for the 2023-24 year, specifically third- and fourth-year undergraduates and graduate students.
“The Local Climate Action Program is based on a simple idea: people love the places where they live, work and play and want to leave a legacy of care and positivity for their children,” said Peter Buck, LCAP’s co-director. “By creating a program that respects people, recognizes the fact that human-caused climate change touches nearly everything we care about, and promotes action using high-quality data, we are doing our part to create hope through action.”
During the fall semester of the program, students are paired with a Pennsylvania county or municipal partner to assist them in creating a greenhouse-gas-emission inventory for the community. This inventory identifies climate-forcing emissions sources and quantities. In the subsequent spring semester, the students and government partners work together to identify next steps towards reducing the area’s emissions based on the inventory and work on projects ranging from drafting climate action plans to updating rooftop solar ordinances or developing documents to access federal funding for energy projects in the bipartisan infrastructure bill. During this time, students get the opportunity to apply their work in real-life, and much of what they do in the program will continue to be utilized by the governments in the future.
“I’ve been working with the City of Scranton’s Assistant City Planner and Sustainability Coordinator during this semester. My team has created a climate action survey, collected greenhouse gas inventory analysis, and have done sustainable research for funding opportunities. By completing this program, we were able to help a local PA community,” said Candace Emanuel, LCAP participant and undergraduate student majoring in Energy and Sustainability Policy. “The ability to work with a real municipality and create real action has improved my overall outlook of my educational experience at Penn State. The skills I utilized this semester will hopefully carry over into my personal life after academia. While climate action plans are needed in all local governments, assisting a community with a plan, like the one I could be working on in the future, gives me opportunity to understand how smaller communities work.”
This hands-on experience not only benefits students, but also the community partners they are working with.
“This is a terrific program; the professors and students have been outstanding partners, and since it is supported by grants it has been revenue neutral for Bucks County,” said Neale Dougherty, director of sustainability at Bucks County and LCAP local government partner, “We applied to the Local Climate Action Program through the PA DEP back in the spring of 2022. Once admitted, we were matched up with a team of students and professors from Penn State. During the Fall semester, we worked on a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas emissions in Bucks County. During the spring semester, we will use that essential data to guide us on implementing a local climate action plan, which will also help shape our county government operations sustainability plan.”
Students with a passion for sustainability and a desire to get involved in local government are well-suited for the program. The skills that LCAP builds are transferable to many climate policy and sustainability positions within both government and private sectors, and designing and implementing a project as part of a team is both fulfilling and motivating for many students.
“The most challenging part of the experience is overcoming your self-doubt. It can be daunting to sift through the resources and try to dissect them to the point where you feel comfortable articulating them as the expert in the room. Recognizing that you have to push past this discomfort and jump into the deep end is the hardest part; everything else evolves from there,” said Isabella Briseño, a fourth-year undergraduate student double majoring in environmental resource management and political science.
“The most beneficial aspect of this experience has been the real-world application of education and work," said Caden Vitti, third-year undergraduate student double majoring in energy engineering and Spanish. "Most of my engineering classes focus on technical applications of systems that are rarely translated into real-world design, but this program teaches both theory, analysis and engagement of data and policy while emphasizing human components of decision-making and planning. I am fortunate to have had a chance to form relationships with stakeholders who hope to do good in their communities and have a stronger purpose moving forward in my sustainable engineering career. I would most definitely recommend this program to other students. This is a unique opportunity to develop technical skills while simultaneously learning about climate action from a local government perspective. It provides students with the chance to make a big impact while still in their early years of their career, which is both professionally and personally so meaningful.”
Brandi Robinson, LCAP’s co-director, said, “The LCAP program gives students from any Penn State campus the opportunity to step out of the classroom and into the real world to apply highly transferable skills in greenhouse gas accounting and climate policy planning at the local government level. For students, working on a project that has life and meaning beyond the dropbox inspires creativity, ingenuity, and a heightened desire to do their very best. For our government partners, we’re helping them advance local climate policy planning by supporting the legwork it takes to advance these initiatives. The students win, the local government wins, and the climate wins.”
To learn more about participating in the program, please visit the Local Climate Action Program website. For more specific questions or feedback, students may contact Brandi Robinson directly at bjn151@psu.edu and municipal and county partners may contact Peter Buck at peterbuck@psu.edu.