Field: This word comes from ecology, and the term “field study.” It is based on the distinction between research done indoors, in the lab, and research done outdoors, in the field. Environmental: “environment” means that which encloses. Philosophy: means love (philo) of wisdom (sophy). Field Environmental Philosophy (FEP) is a pedagogy that takes students outdoors...Continue Reading
Now Voyager is the most amazing Field Environmental Philosophy study-abroad program in the world— This year we’ll be in the field for 3 weeks from January 2 to 21st—starting in Valpariaso, a gritty Pacific coast city known for its graffiti, poetry and food, then we’ll head south to surf paradise Pichilemu, and from there head...Continue Reading
Our Place Summer School is designed to “unplug” your child by bringing them into direct contact with the creatures, geologies, hydrologies and infrastructures of the Nonotuck biome and the Westfield River watershed. For five six-hour days, we roam our place—the valley and the hilltowns—investigating our natural and cultural history with all of our senses, and...Continue Reading
We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry. —Aldo Leopold THE Problem: We are experiencing a paradigm shift precipitated by anthrogenic global warming. Many of the things we have been taught and teach need to be reassessed, re-understood and revised—around the pressing fact that our present way of living is out of synch with the...Continue Reading
Now Voyager Tuition and Logistics From December 27, 2016 to January 6, 2017, Now Voyager takes college students (& 18+ year olds) on an ecstatic journey through South-Central Chile, following the path of water from the Pacific Ocean in Pichilemu across the Central Range, the agricultural Central Valley, and onto the high Andean peaks of...Continue Reading
Happy! Biocitizen School is teaming with Superfun Chile to run Now Voyager, an 11-day field environmental philosophy (FEP) expedición for college students who want to learn to teach FEP. Departing from and returning to Santiago, Chile, we’ll journey from surf-paradise Pichilemu to the Andean peaks of the Tinguiririca range— While I was in Pichilemu developing Now Voyager curricula,...Continue Reading
The Life Riparian (Cross-posted from Hilltown Families) Riparian is a strange sounding word that denotes “river bank”: the meeting point of river and land. We enter the “riparian zone” when we get close to a river. It is a place we want to be, because it brims with exuberant sounds and smells, and because it...Continue Reading
I do get excited about maps like this one, which shows new areas in Chesterfield and Westhampton the USFWS is proposing for conservation. Here are the comments I sent USFWS, supporting “CCP Alternative C”: Dear US Fish and Wildlife Service, As a resident of Westhampton, Massachusetts, and director of the Westhampton-based 501(c)3 Biocitizen School of Environmental...Continue Reading
Biokids at Holyoke Dam From this month’s Ripple: Stories about Western Mass Rivers, cross posted from Hilltown Families The land is an organism, wrote Aldo Leopold, the Yale-trained game management specialist, about seventy-five years ago. An organism is alive, and its life is made up of the contributions of disparate organs, each of which would...Continue Reading
Wilderness is one of the fundamental concepts of environmental philosophy. It is commonly recognized as being a place without human presence; yet is also a feeling of fear and awe, and a particular state of heightened consciousness, as the “–ness” (re: happiness & sadness) implies. Wilderness: Theory and Practice is designed to help you understand...Continue Reading
WHAT IS BIOCITIZEN? The word “biocitizen” is a contraction of “biotic citizen,” a term and idea conceived by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) who is widely celebrated for conceiving the “land ethic.” A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. A […]
Charlie is a recent graduate from Wesleyan University who is just beginning to get his footing in the big wide world and figure out where he’s going. Although he majored in music, his studies always seemed to circle around environmentalism and the more-than-human world, a cross pollination which began the summer after his freshman year […]
Lugar son historias en las que vivimos. Y algunos lugares nos gustan más que otros. ¿Por qué? Ricardo Rozzi nos cuenta una historia sobre un lugar que ama. —secundo de […]
Lugar son historias en las que vivimos. Y algunos lugares nos gustan más que otros. ¿Por qué? Yubitza Bermúdez nos cuenta una historia sobre un lugar que ama. —primero de […]
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