Natural Resources: Nature and Belonging

A unique focus on the intersections of nature, identity, and belonging that supports students in cultivating a wider, deeper, and more nuanced understanding of nature and the dynamics of belonging. Students will gain practices to connect more deeply with nature, themselves, and the community and understand how our worldview and relationship with nature can help address growing global environmental challenges.

Synchronous online

This course fulfills the D2: Diversity of Human Experience catamount core requirement. This course will support you in cultivating a wider, deeper, and more nuanced understanding of nature and the dynamics of belonging – to nature, each other, and yourself. Whether you’re seeking to connect with the more-than-human world for the first time, or already have a deep connection, this class will inspire you to think deeply and critically about how your own experiences and worldview around nature and belonging has been shaped by your identities and the many social, historical, and cultural forces at play. Through this experience, you will develop practices to connect more deeply with nature and will make friends, build community, and gain a suite of hands-on nature and belonging practices. The course structure is designed to help you build connections within smaller groups of the larger class, share experiences, try new nature and belonging practices, and ground these learnings in an intellectual framework. After successfully completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Articulate your personal and unique understanding of nature and belonging and situate it within larger social and cultural frameworks. 2. Demonstrate an ability to engage with multiple ways of knowing and hold multiple perspectives on the meaning and expressions of nature and belonging. 3. Think critically about how your own experiences and worldview around nature and belonging have been shaped by your identities and myriad social, historical, and cultural forces. 4. Engage in a suite of practices that bring more nature connection and belonging into your experience in a way that is authentic to who you are and that you can apply in diverse contexts of your life. 5. Build connection with each other and form a community within our class.

This course is highly interactive and experiential. Students should come to class ready to engage with the professors and their classmates through dialogue, discussion, and other activities. Additionally, students will participate in experiential nature-connection activities outside of class, spending time outdoors to apply the principles of nature connection and belonging in their lives. These activities aim to expand or transform their lived experience and provide a first-hand exploration of the class content.

Grading will be based on attendance and participation in synchronous meetings, reading logs, nature and belonging practices assignments (experiential), and the unit and final assignments (written or recorded syntheses of class content and your lived experiences).