This article marks Kelly Peter’s (CEO and Co-Founder) contribution to a series on behavioral scientists at Burning Man, the temporary society marked by the descent of tens of thousands to the Nevada desert for transformation.

Kelly, as both a Burner and behavioral scientist, could not resist the urge to bring science to the desert, where she and Dan Ariely (Chief Behavioral Scientist and Co-Founder) ran a humble field experiment to “show how interesting social questions can be explored by scientific processes in even the harshest and most dynamic conditions.”

Read more to learn about the nature of their experiment, what it suggests about the transformative potential of Burning Man, and the ways that science can transcend the laboratory.