Landscapes of Change: Writing & Mapping the Future

REVISED

Fall 2012 and Winter 2013 quarters

Faculty

Anne de Marcken (Forbes) creative writing, moving-image media , Peter Impara geography, landscape studies

Fields of Study

environmental studies, geography, literature, natural history, sustainability studies and writing

Preparatory for studies or careers in

ecology, environmental studies, geography, literature, natural history and writing.

Description

How do our landscapes shape us and how do we shape them? How can the endeavors of science and art inform our understanding of the changing planet—what can they tell us about its past, and how can they shape its future?

Both stories and maps are ways of finding patterns and organizing information: they locate us in time and space and in relation to one another. In this program, using geography and creative writing as methods of inquiry, students will encounter the environment today, discover its past, and imagine its future. Using historical and present-day climate change as a framework, we will investigate the ways cultural and personal identity emerge from the natural landscape and the ways that people, in turn, shape the environment. We will  read  the story of our physical environment in cultural, literary and geographic records and in the land itself. We will tell our own stories of place using maps and creative writing. 

Experiential learning is an important aspect of this program; in addition to other day trips, we will go on an extended field trip to Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, a 28-mile spit separating the Pacific Ocean from the Willapa Bay. There we will experience firsthand the interconnectedness of climate, landscape and culture. We will use the tools of geography, creative writing, and digital media to envision and even affect the future of this landscape and how we inhabit it, and will consider and experiment with the ways information and imagination influence our sense of connection to and responsibility for the physical world.

In addition to generating research and creative writing in response to the program's themes, students will collaborate to create interactive tools for public engagement and will play an active role in producing Evergreen's 2013 TEDx conference on Climate Change Innovations.

Students will develop science skills through interpretation of maps and spatial data, by making their own maps, and through site and landscape analysis. They will cultivate creative writing skills through independent practice and workshop-based critique with an emphasis on creative non-fiction and hybrid literary forms such as image-based essays and interactive texts. Scientific, literary and artistic perspectives, practices, and theories will inform lectures, readings and seminars. Students will use critical and technical skills as they learn to research, analyze and interpret environments through readings and seminars, in writing and computer workshops, and by using the landscape itself as a classroom.

Academic Website

http://blogs.evergreen.edu/landscapesofchange

Location

Olympia

Online Learning

Enhanced Online Learning

Books

Greener Store

Required Fees

Fall $200/Winter $250 for overnight field trips.

Offered During

Day

Program Revisions