What on Earth Is ES Teaching You?

The task of teaching about contemporary ecological crises, from global warming to global biodiversity loss, presents a vital pedagogical challenge. Educators across diverse subdisciplines of environmental studies (ES) are now revisiting fundamental questions concerning what to teach, how to teach, and even why to teach as their traditional subject matter transforms around them. In this course, we will investigate how ES instructors and ES students are together grappling with the implications of what they are studying.

Students will carry out individual and/or collaborative research projects analyzing these questions in the context of Middlebury’s very own ES program. Through direct engagements with current and past ES students and faculty, comparisons with other institutions, and targeted course readings exploring key facets of this bewildering “learning challenge,” we will try to imagine what an education proportionate to the radical implications of this fateful planetary moment might look like.