Middlebury College ENVS0300: Approaching Sustainability from the Roots

During the spring semesters of 2019, 2020, and 2021 as a Professor of the Practice at Middlebury College I designed and taught "Approaching Sustainability from the Roots"  in the Environmental Studies Program. 

Through literature and classroom guests the course explores ancient texts, indigenous ways of being, social and climate justice, dominant worldviews, systems theories, economics, and social impacts of media. We ask a few big questions to examine today's sustainability practices and movements: 
  • Who, how and what is missing from the dominant worldviews?
  • What don't we know?
  • How has the human's growth mindset served the planet?
  • How can we unlearn and re-learn to re-imagine a world where planetary and human health (Raworth) are the metrics of success?

Each student commits to a daily contemplative practice for the semester that includes being in relationship with Lao Tzu's Dao de Jing and journaling.  They are asked to integrate these practices with their personal inquiries to make visible the well-being of the individual as a critical root of our inter-dependent and inter-connected universe.  

The course also includes a mentoring component where each student is matched with a sustainability practitioner for a conversation or two to consider the work and their place.  See below for the emergent syllabi and experiences shared during these seminal years in the history of our species. 
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Discussing how we adapt communities and local economies based on Kate Raworth's "Doughnut Economics". May 2019
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Sharing after a contemplative classroom practice painting silently in pairs while considering the human place in the universe after reading "Journey of the Universe" by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Swimme. March 2020 (pre-covid evacuation)
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Sharing our empty vessel basketmaking stories after our visit from Abenaki Educator Judy Dow. Outdoor socially distant classroom, April 2021