‘I didn’t make much of a difference, but there was a difference in me’: a qualitative study of students’ participation in efforts to mitigate human–elephant conflict in Botswana

International learning opportunities for students are sometimes framed as merely tourist experiences. Yet, short-term study abroad programs have the potential to significantly impact students’ understanding of themselves as global citizens and contributors to conservation and sustainability efforts. In this study, we investigated a workshop bringing university students together with local farmers to design deterrents for keeping elephants out of farmers’ fields in northern Botswana. With faculty mentors, students from four universities collectively designed and built prototypes of locally-feasible solutions that could mitigate human–elephant conflict in the Okavango Delta region. We present students’ perceptions, experiences, and learning during and resulting from the workshop, including the differences between students’ expectations prior to the workshop and the actual experience, and the qualities of global citizenship gained by partnering students with local people. Findings reveal the workshop’s successes include workshop attendees’ cross-cultural collaboration, applications of design-thinking and problem-solving to address local challenges in relevant ways, important cultural learning experiences for all participants, and co-created prototypes of machines and devices for local farmers to test and implement.