Establishing Contact With Nature Through an Environmental Education Class: Personal Experience as a Visiting Student

• In Event: Tackling Climate Change Through Critical, Contemplative, and Transformative Experiential Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Academic traditional lectures or seminars usually offer students some theoretical perspectives to the issue, requiring some readings and helping students get experience in the field only through some group work and discussions. This is not how it went with our Global Climate Change and Education class at UMD. As a student I experienced all kinds and layers of involvement: theoretical learning through readings along with personal, spiritual and emotional involvement into the topics and activities in this class. In my paper I will focus on the different class experiences I gain from the nontraditional format and what impact the class has had on me. I will specifically focus on my involvement in the Save Guilford Woods movement.

As a student of the class, I had an opportunity to take part in group connection-with-nature events and take a stand to protect natural forests in the University of Maryland area. That whole experience changed my perspective on ways of learning. It raised my ecological awareness and allowed me to build my own attitude towards important social problems. In the world where capitalism acts in conflict with nature, you either stay blind or you have to pick a side. The Global Climate Change and Education class is capable of opening the eyes for such matters and helping you articulate your own personal viewpoint. As a foreign student, I can tell from the example of the Guilford Woods how the local problem is at the same time a global problem in the context of deforestation. I learn what we need to stand up for.

Author

• Anna Grigoryeva, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author