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2017 Conference

June 21–24, 2017

Tuscon, AZ

AESS 2017 Draft Conference Session Schedule

Creating Sustainability-Focused Experiential Learning Opportunities for Students: Opportunities, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Friday, June 23, 2017 at 1:30 PM–3:00 PM MDT
ENR2 N 595
Abstract

Experiential learning is an important part of environmental studies and sustainability education. Yet creating and sustaining experiential learning initiatives, sites, and delivery methods can be challenging. Even as there is broad acceptance of the need to embrace experiential and integrative learning as a fundamental part of undergraduate education, educators and administrators continue to struggle to move forward with this agenda in the context of deeply-rooted traditional ways of organizing academic and student life. This paper examines the effort undertaken at Concordia College since 2011 to increase the role of experiential learning in environmental and sustainability education, exploring the opportunities that were discovered, the challenges encountered, and the lessons learned. Rather than focusing on one type of experience, the paper instead considers a diverse array of initiatives and programs in the context of one college -- that is, within one specific organizational ecosystem. The analysis includes an eco-reps program, an eco-house living-learning community, a campus garden, an off-site lake and prairie facility, on-campus sustainability internships, a spring break sustainability leadership trip program, and internships and other projects in the broader community. These have all proven to be a fundamential part of the promotion of interdisciplinarity and community-engagement at the college. Most of these were created only over the past five years. Ramping up experiential education opportunities in such a short period of time has brought into stark relief the obstacles to this venture while also allowing for experimentation with a variety of strategies for achieving success. The paper and the presentation will place the recent experience at Concordia College into the context of the existing literature and descriptions of best practices, with the aim of providing useful information to those seeking to promote sustainability-focused experiential education at their own institutions.

Primary Contact

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Kenneth Foster, Concordia College, Moorhead MN

Presenters

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Dr. Kenneth W. Foster, Ph.D., Concordia College, Moorhead MN
Title of paper

Creating Sustainability-Focused Experiential Learning Opportunities for Students: Opportunities and Challenges at a Liberal Arts College

Co-Authors

Chair, Facilitator, Or Moderators

Discussants

Workshop Leaders

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