Unearthing Complexity on the Appalachia Energy Immersion

Arriving With Answers, Leaving With Better Questions

Ten days. Seven states. Dozens of conversations that could not have happened in a classroom.

This past March, a group of Dartmouth students packed into vans and drove twelve hours south from Hanover into the heart of Appalachia — through changing landscapes, past farms and into communities whose fates are bound up in one of the most consequential challenges of our time: the energy transition. They visited coal mines, fracking sites, watershed restoration projects, workforce training programs, and the halls of federal power in Washington, D.C. They met miners, environmental justice organizers, natural gas executives, congressional staffers, and families living in the middle of it all. They arrived with intellectual frameworks. They left with something more valuable: better questions.

The Education Started When the Certainty Ended

For many students, the trip's most significant learning happened not in moments of confirmation, but in moments of discomfort — when the clean narratives they'd learned collided with a far more complex reality on the ground.

"I think one of the biggest shifts in my thinking was moving away from seeing energy as something that can be easily categorized as 'good' or 'bad.' Before, I would have thought of renewable energy as the obvious solution and fossil fuels as the problem, and while that is still partly true, it is a lot more complicated when you consider the people whose lives are tied to those industries. Transitioning to cleaner energy is important, but it is not just a technical problem to solve. It is also a social and economic challenge, and if it is not handled carefully, it can leave people behind." – Ahmed Elmi '27

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The trip included excursions as well as breaks to relax and reflect. (Photo courtesy of Maya Beauvineau '26)

The Transition Looks Different From Inside It

The itinerary was deliberately designed to surface complexity rather than resolve it. 

Students visited Northeast Natural Energy's natural gas operations — touring drill rigs, frack pads, and production sites — and then, the same week, sat with residents whose water and air had been affected by those same operations. They hiked through the stunning landscape of the New River Gorge National Park, a former coal landscape being reimagined as an outdoor recreation economy. They shared meals with coal miners and with the organizers trying to chart a different future for their communities. The trip bridged abstract knowledge and lived reality.

"I went into the trip thinking I had a handle on what the energy transition and our current systems looked like. But I didn't understand many of the technicalities of energy systems until we got there and I was able to engage in dialogue. I got to understand why gas plants can ramp and coal plants can't, why getting a new generator onto the grid through PJM takes years while markets shift beneath you. What changed my thinking on a broader scale was understanding how and where political and social structures played a role in getting projects off the ground." 
– Iha Rastogi '27

Zoe Johnson '26 offered the striking observation, "In some ways it's even stranger that our system allows us to never think about the source of our electricity, even encourages us to never think about it."

That invisibility — the way energy infrastructure hides itself from the people who depend on it most — is precisely what the immersion was designed to reveal.

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Students visited the Northeast Natural Energy production site where there were drill rigs and frack pads. (Photos courtesy of Maya Beauvineau '26)

Proximity Changes Everything

One of the trip's organizing principles is that you cannot fully understand problems you keep at a distance. This was tested vividly in Appalachian Pennsylvania, where students joined the Center for Coalfield Justice on a "Fracklands Tour," meeting residents directly impacted by environmental contamination, and hearing from grassroots organizers navigating a political landscape that defies easy categorization. 

Student reflections captured the disorienting, and ultimately generative, experience of encountering that complexity firsthand.

"While political polarization is stark and seemingly insurmountable in the Capitol, the reality on the ground in Appalachia is full of nuance, leaving room for connection and contradiction. Here, staunchly-progressive-feminist-environmental-justice-organizers knock on MAGA neighbors' doors offering to listen and support their needs. Here, natural gas executives spend their free time organizing community clean-ups in their backyard watershed." – Maya Beauvineau '26

Maya shared, "This trip taught me that achieving 'justice' requires acknowledging and embracing the nuance and contradictions inherent within energy production and energy transition. Above all, it is critical to begin with the understanding that all people deserve clean air, clean water, and respect. These lessons will accompany me through my advocacy and community organizing efforts for years to come."

Alexx Lipshutz '27 arrived with a set of assumptions about what was right and wrong in the energy transition — and found those assumptions challenged by the communities themselves. Alexx learned that "...it is really difficult to draft policy, both on a local and a Federal level, without a relationship to the communities you regulate," and made a personal commitment, "No matter how far removed I am from the 'ground' in my career, I hope to always prioritize local communities."

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Working with the Morris Creek Watershed Association, students collected samples of macroinvertebrates to assess the health of the watershed and impacts from mine drainage. (Photo courtesy of Alexandra Popescu '28)

Complexity Is Not the Enemy of Justice — It's a Defining Characteristic of It

The trip asked students to sit with something uncomfortable: that policy frameworks, however well-intentioned, can sometimes perpetuate extractive relationships when they treat communities as problems to be solved rather than partners in designing their own futures. The people most affected by the energy transition deserve more than being subjects of someone else's solution.

Rie Kitara '27 processed this through poetry:

"A system within a system,
where effort does not always
become impact.

And I realized then,

power is not where you stand,
but what you can move."

The trip opened doors of perception.

Alexandra Popescu '28 noted that the experience is actively informing her coursework on energy systems and energy justice, her research, and her involvement in the Irving Institute's Energy Ventures program:

"All these different angles of the energy system and my involvement in it were sparked because of the trip and I am so grateful for the trip leaders, the student trip leaders, the trippees, Rosi, and all of our wonderful partners for making this possible and so meaningful."

What began over a decade ago as a small effort to clean and study the Morris Creek watershed has grown into an enduring Appalachian immersion - one that now weaves together the region's policy, place, and culture into a living story still unfolding.

This years' Appalachia Energy Immersion trip ran from March 18–28, 2026, and was organized by Dartmouth Sustainability and co-sponsored by the Irving Institute. We are grateful to trip leaders in the Dartmouth Sustainability Office, Rosi Kerr, Erin Kelly, and Kate Salamido '19, for making it possible.

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At the BridgeValley Technical and Community College, students participated in the Utility Line Service Training Program. (Photos courtesy of Arian Thornton '29)

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In Washington, D.C., students visited the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, met with a staffer of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and leaders of the League of Conservation Voters. (Photo courtesy of Zoe Johnson '26)