Environmental Science

This class will explore forests from an interdisciplinary perspective. We will study the ecology and history of forests in north Georgia, as well as the ways in which forests have been represented in religious traditions, fairy tales, folklore, and Native American cultures.

Perceptions of and actions upon the natural world are deeply connected to religious traditions and practices. The way we encounter, destroy, enhance, consume, honor, and attend to the natural world is related to human understandings of creation, beauty, responsibility, community, justice, interconnection, human identity, the value of non-human sentient life, and expectations of the future, all of which are often related to religious teaching and commitments. In a world currently characterized by environmental crisis and conflict, it has never been more important to examine the role of religion in human understandings of the natural world. This class offers students an opportunity to investigate the connection between religion and nature in the current 21st Century context of urgent eco-anxiety, as well as stubborn hopefulness for a just and sustainable relationship with the Earth.

The Leadership in Environmental Studies course is designed from the dual perspective of the field of Biology as well as from the perspective of Education. The developer of this course and instructor, Charity Robertson, holds graduate degrees in both Plant Pathology and Science Education, and this course is designed to be taught appropriately by a teacher leader with qualifications in training related to environmental biology, broad field biology, or from the framework of Education, or to be co-taught by an instructor of education and an instructor of Biology. This course seeks to take the framework of broad ecological frameworks/themes and an understanding of themselves as self-analytical leaders in numerous spheres. Students are asked to provide evidence of engaging with the community and ethical leadership.

The actvites of John and William Bartram cover a century, from the colonial period through the revolutonary period and into natonal history. The published and unpublished writngs of the two botanists can be studied through the lens of memory studies and environmental psychology. They are a case study in the relatonship between humans and the natural world, and the relatonship between environment and memory. During their travels, they collected and discovered dozens of new plants and animals and introduced many of these to other countries (especially England). When they traveled, various Natve American groups controlled large territories and the Bartrams both personally interacted with the Native individuals and were guests of delegatons sent to negotate with Natve groups. Their recorded perceptons and memories of the Native Americans they encountered make them ideally suited to introduce us to the intertwined history, geography, biology and Native American cultures of colonial America.

This course will explore a list of local plants from an anthropological and scientific perspective. An understanding of how evolution creates new species of plants as well as their various chemical and physical adaptations will be developed. A brief introduction will be given into the systematics of plants in general and especially our focal species as well as their conservation. The basics of plant identification will be covered including use of current technology for this purpose. The course includes a strong hands-on component with instruction on cultivation of plants and preparation of food, medicine, and other products from them. Students will be involved with gardens designed to educate the community about plants that were important to the Cherokee and Muscogee people, as well as to early colonial settlers of the region.