About the Courses
- For a list of Sustainable Communities Major requirements, click here
- For a list of Sustainable Communities course descriptions, click here
The SC major is comprised of one weekend of classes per month plus classes most Fridays. The weekend and Friday classes integrate learning from Cultural Ecology, Ecological Design, Ecological Agriculture and Food Systems, and EcoDwelling courses.
Core Course Series
The core course series consists of two threads:
- cultural ecology/sustainable communities
- foundations of ecological design (permaculture)
The Cultural Ecology/Sustainable Communities thread applies ecological concepts to the understanding of human history and social systems. Students learn to think in terms of systems, cycles, and energy flows, while gaining an overview of human cultures through history as a way of contextualizing the entire course. How have human beings in different eras, cultures, and environments obtained the basic necessities of existence? How have these patterns of subsistence affected social organization, religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, and other cultural traits? How are we to evaluate these differences in culture: as evolutionary stages, as all equally valid choices, or by means of some set of ethical criteria? What meaning does the study of human cultures have for us today? Topics such as energy resources, global climate change, the rise and fall of civilizations, geopolitics, social movements, and community organizing are covered.
The Foundations of Ecological Design course series trains students in ecological design methods and techniques for creating sustainable human systems, with a focus on ecological land management using a permacultural design approach. Students undertake group projects in which they apply the ecological design methods to real projects with real clients. The design method includes assessment and analysis, visioning, conceptual and master planning, implementation, and evaluation. Techniques include site assessment, pattern recognition, project management, water harvesting, water management on the landscape, agroforestry, passive and active solar, wastewater management, sustainable forestry and wild lands management with native and domestic animals habitat restoration.
Ecological Food Systems Concentration
The Ecological Food Systems Concentration creates active alternatives to our current industrial agricultural system. Students emerge from the two-year course series prepared to regenerate culture through their work as farmers, educators, policy designers, land stewards, and urban and community food security professionals. We develop our skills to protect our human right to nourish ourselves without harming our home, the earth, through a practical project-based learning approach. Courses include lectures, workshops, hands-on projects, field-trips, and a dynamic community-building environment.
EcoDwelling Concentration
EcoDwelling seeks to restore balance and harmony to the process of human habitation on earth. We encourage students to make their own way of dwelling more affordable, sustainable, sacred, and liberating—and to help others do the same. While contemporary buildings and cities tend to isolate people from nature and from each other, consuming resources at an alarming pace and undermining human and ecosystem health, EcoDwelling explores ways to work with sun, wind, water, earth, and the living world to shelter, heat, cool, and nourish ourselves without doing harm. Through design projects, hands-on building experiences, lecture/discussions, and mentoring meetings, students are encouraged to implement their evolving visions of sustainable dwelling. This is not an architecture program, but it can complement architectural training.
