Our Place Curriculum
The curriculum for Our Place is also the itinerary:
Day One: Walking Westhampton
- introduction to Thoreau’s essay Walking
- streamwalking
- the colonial roads of Mt. Tob
Day Two: Southern Nonotuck
- the dinosaurs of Holyoke
- the microclimates, and unique ecological communities, of Mt. Tom
- the view from Mt. Nonotuck
Day Three: Into the Western Hills
- visiting the William Cullen Bryant homestead and recovering the first American poem, Thanatopsis
- riverwalking
Day Four: Environmental Aesthetics
- discovering Thomas Cole’s The Ox-Bow from the top of Mt. Skinner
- riverwalking
- the open fields of Hadley
Day Five: Northern Nonotuck
- walking the Robert Frost trail to the top of Mt. Toby
Each day, time is set aside for journal writing. Journal entries are shared by students during impromptu, low-pressure group readings, Writers hear their own words, perceive the effect they have on listeners, and develop their style and voice. In the week after camp, students assemble a portfolio of writing the instructor reviews and comments upon.
During this five-day experiential learning adventure students are introduced to:
—fundamental concepts in ecology, including identification of terrestrial and aquatic flora and fauna, bioclimatology, watershed- and soil- systems, and
—landscape aesthetics, focusing those expressed by 19th century writer Henry David Thoreau and artist Thomas Cole, and by contemporary architecture critic James Kunstler
—field journal writing techniques
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