Date of Award
2019
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
First Advisor
Dr. Amy Seidl
Second Advisor
Dr. Karen Nordstrom
Keywords
Alternative Pedagogy, Anthropocene, Place-based Education, Sense of Place, Students-teaching-students
Abstract
Contemporary environmental education is tasked with the acknowledgement of the Anthropocene - an informal but ubiquitous term for the current geological epoch which arose from anthropogenic changes to the Earth system - and its accompanying socio-ecological implications. Sense of Place can be a hybridized tool of personal agency and global awareness for this task. Through the creation, execution and reflection of a 14-student students-teaching-students (STS) course at the University of Vermont in the Spring of 2019, Giannina Gaspero-Beckstrom and Ella Mighell aimed to facilitate a peer-to-peer learning environment that addressed sense of place, social justice and community engagement. The students-teaching-students framework is an alternative educational approach that supports the values and practices of the University of Vermont’s Environmental Program, as well as an intentional breakdown of the hierarchical knowledge paradigm. Using alternative pedagogies (predominately critical and place-based), we attempted to facilitate meaningful learning through creative expression, experiential education, community dialogue and personal reflection. Our intention with this was to encourage awareness and action.
Recommended Citation
Gaspero-Beckstrom, Giannina Sol and Mighell, Ella, "Sense of Place in the Anthropocene: A students-teaching-students course" (2019). Environmental Studies Electronic Thesis Collection. 60.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/envstheses/60