HECU3593

The Field Methods course provides students with practical skills to assess and improve ecosystems and decision-making in socio-ecological systems. We will use a text by Bill Mollison, a founder of permaculture, to learn how to work with nature to improve ecological, communal, and personal health simultaneously. This course is designed to help students develop the capacity for constant and consistent ecological thinking, in order to participate in wise and effective decision-making at the interface of the human and natural worlds. All field-based learning in the course takes place in partnership with community organizations and branches of government that are working actively as ecological stewards and promoting sustainability of human society and specific settlements with wise design. We will learn and apply conceptual, organizational, and technical skills to help our community and institutional partners in this process. This course engages Lily Springs Farm as a field-learning site. We work with a permaculture designer and farmer on-site to use a variety of techniques to assess the landscape and to design and implement ecologically restoration strategies for: a lake; a wetland; a farm system, a pine plantation being slowly converted to an oak savanna mimic; and 30 acres of forest that has been largely undisturbed for the past thirty years.

This course is one of four courses which make up the Environmental Sustainability: Ecology, Policy, and Social Transformation Program taught by Study Away partner HECUA.

Concurrent registration is required in 3591, in 3592, and in 3594, Fall semester program. Dept consent required.