Biocitizen is so pleased to welcome Mason Lollis-Taylor as an Assistant Teacher in the Our Place Summer School! (More: Living Rivers School) Mason trained with us last year, and has learned so much about teaching Field Environmental Philosophy in Western Massachusetts. After the Summer School concluded, he went to Nepal to immerse himself in Himalayan...Continue Reading
Biocitizen is so pleased to welcome Ursa Heidinger as the Assistant Director of Biocitizen NY! Ursa has been a part of Biocitizen from the very beginning, and has taught Field Environmental Philosophy in Western Massachusetts for several years. She moved to NYC three years ago and realized that if Los Angeles has an Our Place...Continue Reading
Phoebe Gelbard has been building our school of Field Environmental Philosophy since 2015, when she was a junior at Northampton High School. Biocitizen is grateful for her service to the hundreds of students she’s taught. She’s grown with us as we experiment with and codify FEP curricula and itineraries, and is ready to become one...Continue Reading
Biocitizen is so pleased to welcome Sabrina Moore to the Living Rivers School senior staff! Sabrina is a graduate student at the University of North Texas pursuing a PhD degree in Biology. Her main research area involves the aquatic ecology of the Robalo River and the effect of invasive rainbow trout on the phenology of invertebrate...Continue Reading
Hard to believe but Biocitizen is 10 years old now! One of the deepest joys I (Kurt the director) have experienced is derived from witnessing our students develop from little kids, into adolescents and then into young adults. The school’s CIT program and our junior staff is made of Wings who became Sharpshins and then...Continue Reading
Our Place Counselor In Training Program Position: A CIT will assist the adult staff for one week of camp (5 6-hour days; and will have 1 additional on-the-job training day before the session they are CIT-ing). Much of CIT’s work will involve serving the minor needs of staff while they are preoccupied with group activities; for...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
If you’ve never seen a butterfly or dragonfly spread its wings for the first time, you’ll amazed to see how sensitive those first unfurling moments are. And if you have seen it, you know that moment happens only once in a lifetime; for as soon as they can, they fly away on those wings. Biocitizen’s...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
Summer School Teacher In Training Program Position: A teacher in training will assist the adult staff for one week of school (5, 6-hour days) in either the Wings or Sharpshins programs. This year the staff will consist of an assistant director, a teacher, and the teacher trainee, who will assume the position of third in...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 […]
Westhampton, MA