The nine-acre Sustainability Experience Center (SEC), stewarded by Penn State Sustainability, lies on the edge of Penn State’s University Park campus and provides a living laboratory for students, faculty, and the community to research and learn about sustainability. The site provides an ideal location to explore food, energy, water, land and community systems. The site is home to the campus Community Garden and five ongoing research and outreach projects hosted by various departments and colleges in the university.

AT THIS TIME WE ARE PAUSING ANY NEW TOUR BOOKINGS for the SEC while we negotiate some staff transitions. Please check back here periodically to see any new information about when tour bookings will become available again. 

Not able to get to the SEC or back to State College? Consider these other options for exploring Penn State and its environs:

1. Take a Virtual Tour of the campus: map.psu.edu

In the Sustainability Section of this interactive university map, you’ll find:

1. LEED Buildings
2. Solar Sites
3. Sustainability Experience Center
4. The Student Farm

2. Explore the Campus’s Heritage Trees

Wondering what that beautiful tree whose limbs touch the ground behind Armsby Building is? You can find descriptions of the campus trees here, including heritage trees, commemorative trees and even see some that are no longer with us on the historical archive. Use the filters to find the trees you want or zoom in and take an aerial view of campus. Click on trees to find their descriptions — red- and orange-tagged trees are heritage trees and yellow-tagged trees are commemorative trees.

3. Visit Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center

Located between State College and Huntingdon, only 12 miles from Penn State’s University Park campus, SCEC offers trails, live animals up close, opportunities to learn about conservation, and loads of good programs.