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Accepted Contribution:
Place, change, and temporalities in and of motion: bringing nature into the classroom
Ramya Swayamprakash
(Grand Valley State University)
In my paper I describe my pedagogical choices, intents, and results of introducing a place-based, historical approach premised in frameworks and practices of anti-colonialism and decolonialization alongside routinely taught Western ecological concepts and ideas to teaching environmental studies.
Contribution long abstract:
Responding to a growing interest in moving away from exclusionary and extractive environmental education, I taught a river-based environmental policy analysis and practices undergraduate course that was premised in frameworks and practices of anti-colonialism and decolonialization alongside routinely taught Western ecological concepts and ideas. This mandatory course in the Environmental Studies Program at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI offers an overview of extant sustainability problems, policies, and practices. In my paper I describe my journey in curating readings, assignments, and learning objectives in teaching this class at a predominantly white institution. I focused on exposing students to traditional Indigenous ways of knowing the more-than-human world, creating daily and weekly practices as part of the course assignments that brought students to the river, and structuring their interactions with the river through the course of the semester. Outcomes and indicators of success were driven by weekly and end-of-semester reflections by individual students as well as their evaluations on their growth that were expressed through a final project that tried to bridge knowledge gaps and expand their view of possible sustainability policy interventions when driven by innate respect and reciprocity. This case could offer an example with potential applications in other environmental studies contexts where educators are trying to move beyond the traditional Western paradigm.