As an authorial team, we offer complementary perspectives, having been involved in the project in different capacities and at different times. We interpreted the interviews and our own reflections through the lens of scholarship about service learning (and related areas), adult activist learning, and education for sustainability.
2.3 Student Motivations and Experiences of the SSH Project
2.3.1 Motivations for Initiation and Involvement in the Project
The students interviewed expressed diverse motivations for initiating and taking part in the SSH project, as could be expected for any student activist project. Motivations ranged from (i) wanting to drive long‐term social change through providing a legacy for other students to learn about and experience food growing, and giving students the right to grow their own food1; to (ii) more individual experiential motivations, including wanting a different, more unusual university learning experience and the opportunity to grow their own food; to (iii) a desire to apply knowledge about sustainability beyond their degree. Two of the students interviewed approached the project seeing themselves as more knowledgeable “advisors” to other students, wanting to share their own knowledge about and passion for sustainability with others. Others saw their involvement as an opportunity for their own learning through active experience. This mirrors findings in other informal activism where there is typically a range of participants from those new to the field and those acting in more informal mentoring capacities (Ollis 2008).
2.3.2 A Sustainability Community: Benefits and Challenges
Students interviewed in both years acknowledged that they had experienced issues with group communication and organization in the SSH. At the same time, particularly in the project's first year, the communal, group nature of the project clearly provided motivation and fun for the students, in comparison to more traditional forms of student living in individual halls rooms:
It's [living sustainably in the bungalow] more fun as well and if you are doing it in a community actually it's just generally more enjoyable. I think there's a certain feeling of individualism to modern day cooking and modern day student living that actually is not so enjoyable on the whole, whether it's getting expensive take‐outs or whether it's kind of going out and getting drunk every night. Actually living in a kind of community where you are growing your own food, you can still have an incredible amount of good fun but a lot cheaper and a lot more enjoyable really.
(Student 1, Year 1 of project)
The SSH provides a physical space for social learning (Reed et al. 2010). In the first year of the project, the interviews suggest that social learning took place both within the small group of students living within the house and in the wider network of students who became involved in the house activities through the food growing and outside space, communal cooking, the visual messaging around sustainability and energy, and meetings of a student sustainability society:
A lot of these students [wider body of students involved in the house] were sort of open to the ideas of sustainability but did not really have any sort of concrete foundations in it, and the project gave them the ability to debate and discuss while working and playing with surrounding issues. You know, getting out in the garden and doing some digging on a sunny day with a beer is as good as lounging around and having a beer on a sunny day, but when that's mixed with people who are interested in debating and discussing things, it's magic. So I'd say it was very effective for some individuals.
(Student 2, Year 1 of project)
However, in the second year of the project, one student described experiencing a lack of group cohesion, a lack of direction and support, and a feeling that they were taking on the burden of the project alone:
I've felt like…I've practically been running the house, even though I have not actually been…I wasn't in the position formally… as well as doing the data, and as well as doing the media stuff on top of doing third year.
(Student 3, Year 2 of project)
The interviews highlighted that students had very different starting points in terms of understanding and commitment to the project goals, engagement with and knowledge of sustainable living practices, and motivations for engaging in the project. These differences led to some disillusionment and discontentment, some students feeling that others were not “behaving sustainably enough” or contributing enough, and were not educating others who visited the house about the project:
Another challenge I suppose would be that they have not really engaged with the actual sustainability aspect as much as I would have hoped. I've actually been told off for turning off too many lights, and it's just been difficult in that aspect.
(Student 3, Year 2 of project)
Where these challenges were experienced, students identified that many issues came down to difficulties communicating amongst the group living in the house, and reflected that more regular meetings, setting of objectives, and willingness to engage in possible areas of conflict in order to tackle issues could have helped the project to achieve more by providing a clear direction and regular reminders of required activities.
The process of sharing experiences in a group is an important part of engaging in social action, and the experience of collectively working toward a common cause can be profound (Williford 2015). Informal environmental activist learning occurs through engagement in social movements and social processes situated in our daily interactions with others (Ollis 2008). The SSH clearly has the potential to create a genuine community of practice (Wenger 1999) in which social learning about both sustainable living and activism can occur. However, the degree to which this potential is achieved is dependent on the skills, knowledge, and attributes of those involved, and the ability and motivation to ensure effective communication and participation. As with student group work in other contexts (e.g. Hassanien 2006), interpersonal issues, including communication, scheduling, conflict, and equal participation are seen as key challenges in service learning projects (e.g. Crump 2002; Parece and Aspaas 2007). Even where individuals live in the same house, creating the time, space, and willingness to communicate effectively can be difficult. The academic staff supporting students to initiate the project encouraged the students to take on specific roles and responsibilities, including leadership for the project, although the interviews suggest that this distribution of responsibility was not realized. A reason why more formal leadership and structures of project management (such as regular meetings amongst the housemates) were not taken up might be because students did not want such formal structures within their private spheres.
In any student activism initiative, students involved will have different degrees of readiness to take action (Brinkman and Hirsch 2019), and with this might come different expectations of “success.” Two of the students interviewed in the second year of the project were positive about their learning and the experience, while the other student interviewed was disappointed by what had been achieved:
Well I'm fairly disappointed, to be honest, with this year. The main projects…have kind of been set up, that have not really been finished…So, in terms of what I'm proud of I suppose it's making the project continue rather than actually adding to the project I suppose.
(Student 3, Year 2 of project)
The success of project results can be particularly meaningful to those who view