The Hive is a space dedicated to collaborative learning through creative processes. By partnering with faculty and a diverse student body, the Hive creates an experimental learning experience for solving real world challenges. It hosts a wide variety of events and is dedicated to bringing diverse cultural and educational backgrounds together under a single roof.

In mid-February the Hive hosted a Native Plant Scavenger hunt. The event aimed to not only increase the knowledge of local California Flora but to increase awareness and understanding of the local environment and how it relates to the self. The two hosts were highly knowledgeable students that were passionate about the local plant life and the conservation efforts of the 7C’s. The event began with an ice breaker which consisted of participants imitating the respective walking motions of inanimate objects in the room. A couch, a table, a laptop, and the entire room itself. Participants were then partnered together to take part in the main two-part activity.

We were given two sets of cards. One set was to be done on the short walk to Pitzer’s student garden. The cards were to increase the awareness of the campus on the journey over. Was there trash in the street? What fragrant flowers were passed by? One card was to locate the tallest trees on campus and stand beneath them. Another had the reader listen for specific bird sounds as they walked. Is there a breeze and what direction is it coming from? Upon arriving to the student garden, we were treated to fresh picked kumquats and time with the chickens. A brief discussion about the efforts of the garden and the history were then given to us. The garden sits on top of what was long ago a parking lot and is now entirely student run. The garden suffered the strain of the pandemic in which it went fallow, requiring a long period of students revitalizing its crops.

We then went to the Outback Preserve at the northern end of Pitzer’s campus for the scavenger hunt. We were given the second set of cards each with a short riddle alluding to a plant that could be found in the area. Some of the plants on the hunt (or at least the ones we found) were White Sage, Yerba Santa, Golden Currants, Wild Cucumber, Lemonade Berry, and Yucca. After finding them we were encouraged to engage in sights, feeling, and scents of the plants. The Outback itself is a project of the student body with numerous individual projects of plant restoration, sitting areas, and conservation. The Outback is also home to the highest physical point on campus allowing a view westward over the 7C’s. Before leaving, we were given pouches containing native California plant seeds.

Experiences like this are a fantastic way for students to get to know the larger campus community and its relationship to the local area. The Hive hosts these kinds of events that specifically engage the creative, imaginative, sensorial, and social with participants rarely leaving without having learned something valuable.

Want more information about the Hive? Visit here.