Brown Environmental Leadership Lab (BELL): Florida Keys

The Brown Environmental Leadership Lab (BELL) combines concepts in environmental studies, ecology and leadership, with a mission of developing socially responsible leaders. At BELL, you’ll embark on a journey of learning and reflection while building community with the fellow student environmentalists in your program. This seven day program will take you to picturesque Key Largo, Florida, one hour south of Miami. Your home base will be MarineLab, an environmental education center located on Adams Cut between Blackwater Sound and Largo Sound—convenient to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Florida Bay. From there, you will take a deep dive into tropical marine ecology and conservation, looking at sustainable restoration of coral reefs and studying mangrove ecology. You will assess the collective impacts of global climate change, human interaction and extreme weather events while learning about socially responsible leadership. Over the course of your BELL experience, you will also identify a pressing issue that you’re passionate about. With support from instructors and peers, you will develop an Action Plan to apply your new leadership knowledge to this issue when you return home.