Student Life
Sustainability and the Outdoors
Learning Is in Our Nature
Educating young people to live with purpose and integrity is at the core of Kimball Union’s mission. For more than 200 years, students have found their purpose in one of the Academy’s community values: concern for the environment.
Today, there may be no existential threat our students feel more acutely than the human and environmental challenges facing our planet. At KUA, we believe that education should be the antidote to that anxiety. Our goal is to shift the narrative from concern to capability. We want to build our students’ capacity to innovate, lead, and create a healthier, more sustainable future for us all.
Today, there may be no existential threat our students feel more acutely than the human and environmental challenges facing our planet. At KUA, we believe that education should be the antidote to that anxiety. Our goal is to shift the narrative from concern to capability. We want to build our students’ capacity to innovate, lead, and create a healthier, more sustainable future for us all.
On Campus Programs
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Beekeeping Club
The Beekeeping Club was launched in 2016 as the outcome of a student's senior capstone project on the cultural entomology of insects. The apiary now consists of 3-5 student and faculty hives used to learn the fundamentals of beekeeping. Between hive openings, we repair and build new equipment and learn about bee ecology, management, and health. -
Charlotte's Windmill
Among the first campus sustainable energy efforts, our 15kW wind turbine was the product of a senior capstone project by Charlotte Herbert '11. Through her fundraising efforts with classmates and friends of the school, it was erected in spring 2013 and continues to generate electricity year-round. -
Farm Team
The KUA Farm Team practices sustainable agriculture on campus. Students raise hogs, sheep, and chickens, construct animal housing, and raise seasonal field crops. The Pork Project is our flagship program. Food waste from the dining hall is fed to pigs, offsetting up to 15 tons of CO2 emissions annually and generating a positive cash flow for the club. Farm Team data are incorporated into the science curriculum, and the team's work helps raise community awareness about sustainable food production. -
Greenhouse
The KUA Farm expanded in Summer 2025, adding a 30x50 greenhouse, hoop house, sheep barn, and chicken coop. The greenhouse is overseen by Farm Science Teacher Jack Walker who previously managed the Dartmouth College Organic Farm, making him uniquely qualified to bring local, sustainable produce to the forefront of our program. -
Solar Energy
KUA's 220kw solar energy plant, comprised of panels on roofs and in fields, is a central part of our commitment to environmental sustainability generating around 16% of campus electricity needs and providing first-hand learning experiences for our students. -
Sugar House
Carrying on a long-standing New England tradition, KUA students are engage in maple syrup making. From tapping trees to collecting sap to boiling in the sugar house, students have an opportunity every spring to enjoy the process of making their own maple syrup. Pancakes in Doe Dining Hall wouldn't be the same without it.
Coursework in Sustainability and the Environment
List of 8 items.
Outdoor Recreation
List of 6 items.
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Trail Networks
An extensive network, including the campus “Potato Patch” and land to the north east, offers maintained and groomed trails on approximately 50 acres used by Kimball Union’s Mountain Biking, Nordic Skiing, and cross-country running teams and connect directly to the main Pope Fields athletic complex. -
French's Ledges
At the center of the Meriden Trails lies French’s Ledges, a small rocky summit that offers spectacular 360-degree views from Mt. Ascutney to the southwest, most of the Green Mountain ridge, the White Mountains, and the Meriden Valley. KUA land below the Ledges also has an established rock outcrop camp site with excellent views to the west. The trails access the former KUA ski hill. -
Snow Mountain
Nearly contiguous with the main campus, the 700-acre KUA-owned Snow Mountain offers an extraordinary outdoor lab with opportunities for earth science, forestry, land-use, and wildlife management study. -
Chellis Pond
Kimball Union's on-campus pond and adjacent wetlands serve as a ready-access outdoor biology and environmental field lab that is used by classes to study aquatic ecology and biology. It also hosts less formal activities like tug-of-war competitions across its width, canoe races, and pond hockey and ice skating during the winter. -
Skiing
Located in the heart of Northern New England ski country, Meriden is within 15 minutes of two local ski hills, Whaleback Mountain and Storrs Hill (a training facility for the young Mikaela Shiffrin). Within an hour of campus are Mount Sunapee, Saskadena Six, Killington, Pico, and Okemo ski areas. Our Alpine and Freeskiing programs train at Sunapee and Okemo during the winter. -
Meriden Bird Sanctuary
The Meriden Bird Club was founded in December 1910 to advocate for bird protection in response to wasteful exploitation of birds for years for food, by egg collectors, and especially by a large feather trim industry for clothing/hats. In 1911 the Club became the first in the nation to own and maintain a sanctuary for birds. The 32-acre sanctuary sits adjacent to campus and offers several paths for walking through towering pines.
