Right-Brain Practices and Teaching Environmental Humanities

The humanities, with their focus on understanding the human experience, are crucial for understanding what cultures value and the impact such values have on the natural world and human communities.  The growing number of Environmental Humanities courses at college and universities in the United States are one indication that, as a culture, we need to reconsider our over-reliance on logic and objective analysis: traditional left-brain modes of learning.  “Right-brain” tools such as stories and imagination, nature-based writing, collaborative art projects labyrinth walks and meditation, can help us shift toward a sustainable world by promoting empathy, mutuality, non-efficient and non-consumerist ways of being.  Practicing right-brain activities helps privilege that which has been marginalized and when linked to the critical environmental issues we face, promote deep learning.  [Presentation will include examples and assignments.]