The workshop, through intense on-site immersion, sought to cultivate an understanding and deepened appreciation of the complex interrelatedness 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 was central to our model of place-based learning. There was immeasurable value in field-based, cross-cultural education, which pulled the study of sustainability out of a purely academic context and engaged participants in living the experience of communities and the unique issues and conditions of surrounding ecosystems and bioregions. The program encouraged an understanding of the natural world through experimentation, data collection, drawing, photography, digital visualization, reviewing historical records, and interviewing community members. Through immersive observation of a place rich in biodiversity and characterized by geographic and social complexity, we worked to become more acutely aware of the patterns and behaviors of the natural and human communities that characterized the place and considered how our studies of place might constitute a model applicable to other locations.
The program placed an emphasis on systems, connectedness, interactions, and emerging ideas about nature and life, including important concepts on evolution, life structures, and the nature of individual organisms. It built on the proposition that humans were fully a part of nature—that the human species and all its many expressions were as much a part of the natural order as a termite mound or an old-growth forest. We worked under the guiding idea that understanding this degree of connectedness was critical to successfully resolving challenging environmental and social issues in a rapidly changing world. It was also essential for effectively evaluating and responding to the needs of human communities, biological communities, and the landscapes they inhabited.
Methods of spatial analysis provided cues about how social and ecological patterns, processes, and practices influenced local ecosystems and impacted regional land use. However, much of the insight into these social and ecological mechanisms became visible only through collaboration with experienced local biologists, ecologists, economists, farmers, and foresters. The recording of mechanisms and cause-effect interactions shaping the region occurred through collaboration and shared learning.
