This course will investigate food systems in particular communities of interest, local or global, through group or individual projects. Students will learn how to employ ethnographic methods in their investigations.

We explore woodland, grassland, and wetland sites at the River and Field Campus to learn the taxonomy and cultural significance of native and invasive species.

In this second part of a two course sequence, students design a research project to integrate various social science research methods in the study of a place-based topic. They analyze and interpret empirical data and learn to effectively present research in oral and written form.

This course was co-taught with Mirka Prazak as the result of a NSF award to develop an interdisciplinary, place-based course sequence to introduce students to environmental studies. Bennington was the learning lab, students learned to generate and analyze qualitative and quantitative data and the applications and limitations of science to real world problem solving

In this course, students become familiar with several keystone issues, actors, and events in the modern American environmental movement and the scales at which they play out. We critically analyze how environmental problems are defined, how solutions are proposed, and what limitations exist.

Students learn how to design and carry out a geographically situated research projects using qualitative and quantitative methods. They will understand the functionality of Bennington’s regional food system through review of primary literature, field based data collection and review of documentary film, and learn how to communicate research results to a diverse audience.

This course shows the interdependence of biological and cultural diversity. Students learn botanical methods for plant identification, collection, and assays for biological activity.

This course shows how the agrarian myth embeds the ideal of the family farm in American culture, creates meaning and understanding of American agriculture, and links agrarianism to environmentalism and democratic institutions. We explore how the persistence and adaptive strategies of small farmers contradict the industrial vision of progress.