Colombia (2019)

Bogotá and Rio Claro, Colombia

July 15th- August 16th, 2019

About

The environmental dilemmas of the 21st century have proven to be even more difficult to manage and of greater consequence than projected in the 60’s and 70’s. Many educators have concerns that our current models of higher education are so discipline-centric and narrowly focused that a systems-based approach to problem-solving, of the sort envisioned by the founders of the Wright-Ingraham Institute, seems an unlikely outcome. Architects, designers, planners, industrialists, economists, lawmakers, journalists, in truth, the practice of almost any discipline benefits from a deeper understanding of the natural sciences. The case for pursuing new educational approaches in our current era have much in common with the Institute’s original programs and workshops.  Those philosophical imperatives, combined with new innovative approaches to understanding the interface of human and natural systems, are the foundation of 2019 Field Stations study program in Colombia.

Over the last several decades we have witnessed the synergistic impacts of population growth and increasing industrialization; energy—and agriculture-related natural resource destruction and economic upheaval; and the rapid decline of the natural earth upon which we depend. These compounding transformations have created problems that many in the sciences, social sciences, economics, and health fields believe compromise the viability and promise of the human enterprise. These are not problems that will manifest later in the twenty-first century; they are unfolding today, impacting the wellbeing of human communities from the family unit to the nation-state. These problems need to be addressed by the consolidated efforts of the global community, working at all levels, unified in their commitment to living within the biological and geochemical restraints and resource limitations of the planet.

Education is key to transmitting this message and to nurturing the community of those committed to exploring and cultivating sustainability. Our economic systems, our energy systems, our agricultural models, the way we build our cities, our transportation networks are all subject to re-evaluation in the context of rapidly changing global environmental predicaments. Just as we must change our thinking in these and countless other areas of life, we will have to rethink our current educational models. But how to teach toward sustainability is a complex question beset by entrenched obstacles. Higher education, like many of our societal institutions, can be slow to evolve. (Kevin Bone, from the 2015 Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design Annual Report).

Much of the current debate about educational standards and reforms… is driven by the belief that we must prepare the young only to compete effectively in the global economy.…But there are better reasons to reform education, which have to do with the rapid decline in the habitability of the earth. The kind of discipline-centric education that enabled us to industrialize the earth will not necessarily help us to heal the damage caused by industrialization.…, [we] believe that educators must become students of the ecologically proficient mind and of the things that must be done to foster such minds. In time this will mean nothing less than the redesign of education itself.

~ David W. Orr, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, Island Press, 2004.

Integrated Approaches to Rural Landscapes

Rural landscapes are intimately shaped by both social and natural dynamics: Rural landscapes are subject to their surrounding ecosystems, and at the same time are undoubtedly byproducts of human effort and intension. They are socio-ecological systems — that is, tightly coupled environmental systems in which the natural, constructed, and managed elements of the ecosystem are intertwined to drive environmental and social performance. It is impossible to understand such landscapes without looking closely at people and culture, and the institutions and historical legacies they have created. Likewise, a great deal can be learned about communities, economics, and cultural practices, by looking closely at the land, bioregions and watersheds.

Around the world, urban and rural landscapes are subject to dramatic large-scale processes of change, often driven by external dynamics: changes in farming technology, market variations, changes in the watershed, urbanization, migration, and increasingly extreme weather resulting from climate change, to name a few. One central principle of a regionally-attuned, place-based design practice is in balancing regional ecological functions on the one hand, and the unique interactions of the flora, fauna, weather, soils, microclimate with the cultural practices, land uses and economic drivers in a particular place. By understanding both the specific socio-ecological foundation of a rural community as well as the larger dynamics that shape its context, we can begin to appreciate the multitude of interacting forces reshaping rural landscapes and regional economies.

Teaching Approach

The workshop, through intense on-site immersion, seeks to cultivate an understanding and deepened appreciation of the complex inter-relatedness of natural and cultural phenomena as exhibited by a particular landscape and ecosystem; this field station approach to the observation of natural and human systems is core to our model of place-based learning.There is immeasurable value in field-based, cross-cultural education, which pulls the study of sustainability out of a purely academic context and engages in living the experience of communities and the unique issues and conditions of surrounding ecosystems and bioregions. The program will encourage understanding of the natural world through experimentation, data collection, drawing, photography, digital visualization, reviewing of historical records and interviews with the community. Through immersive observation of a place rich in biodiversity and characterized by geographic and social complexity we will work to become more acutely aware of the patterns and behaviors of the natural and human communities that characterize place and see how our studies of place might constitute a model that could be applied to other locations.

The program places an emphasis on systems, connectedness, interactions, and emerging ideas about nature and life, including important ideas on evolution, life structures and the nature of individual organisms, and will build on the proposition that we (humans) are fully a part of nature, that the human species and all its many expressions are as much a part of the natural order as a termite mound or old growth forest. We will work under a guiding idea that understanding this degree of connectedness is critical to successfully resolving challenging environmental and social issues in our rapidly changing world and is essential for effectively evaluating and responding to needs of the human communities, the biological communities, and the landscapes they inhabit.

Methods of spatial analysis will give cues of how social and ecological patterns, processes, and practices influence local ecosystems and impact regional land use, but much of the insight into these social and ecological mechanisms will become visible only through collaboration with experienced local biologists, ecologists, economists, farmers, and foresters. The recording of mechanisms and cause-effect interactions shaping the region, can happen through collaboration and shared learning.