Larry Hurd and I travelled to Arizona to investigate the possibilities of collaboration with Columbia's "...partnerships with quality educational institutions... committed to sending students to B2C's Earth Semester terms for the next 3 years." We were favorably impressed with the educational programs and felt in general that they would serve the Global Stewardship Program particularly well.
Two articles from Science provide an interesting perspective:
Biosphere 2 and Biodiversity--The Lessons So Far (Joel E. Cohen and David Tilman) Science 1996 November 15; 274: 1150-1151A Mini-Earth Struggles for Respectability (Gretchen Vogel}Science 1998 May 22; 280: 1183