Learning from energy community pilot projects: a student-led comparative study of California and Colombia

Understanding energy systems and their socio-technical transformations can be daunting for students. We suggest that cross-country, student-led approaches to ongoing projects can foster distinctive learning experiences, equipping participants with the analytical tools and grounded awareness necessary to engage with the complexities of energy transitions. We developed a comparative study of state-led energy community pilot projects in Los Angeles (California) and Medellín (Colombia). This initiative placed undergraduate students at the center of the research process, requiring them to simultaneously grapple with the inherent complexities of these new models, interrogate their own assumptions, collaborate across languages and cultural norms, and build shared understandings within different, often conflicting, circumstances. In this paper, we explore three main learning results regarding how students learned about the social dimension of these socio-technical systems, transcended reductionist North-South epistemic dynamics, and reported a series of social and affective transformative developments. We finally discuss pedagogical takeaways given the challenges of promoting student leadership while navigating complex research topics, the advantages of having a diverse set of participants and case studies, the possibility of conducting in-person field visits, the ability to rely on existing networks to improve student experiences, and the importance of promoting flexible collaborative models.