COS 81-2 - Liberation Ecology Field Course: Ecology training for research and personal resilience

Abstract: Ecological field courses are essential for training and retaining minoritized people in environmental fields, yet the majority of field courses are not designed by– nor include the scientific contributions or landscape histories of– Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) in particular (Bowser & Cid 2021). Further, no field course offered by degree-granting or other educational institutions currently addresses the role of social and political oppression-- colonization, slavery, racial capitalism -- in shaping global ecological change processes. This absence represents a pedagogical and theoretical gap in ecological disciplines today. To address these gaps and systemic inequities, the Critical Ecology Lab, a nonprofit research and social change organization, has developed the Liberation Ecology Field Course (LEFC), a new model for ecological field education centering BIPOC graduate students, professionals, and community leaders in environmental fields.

The Liberation Ecology Field Course merges fundamental training in terrestrial field ecology and personal development with the goal of decolonizing ecological research and leadership. To enact decolonization, this course critiques the influence of colonial logics in the development of ecological science fields, centralizes non-Western methods of observation, measurement, and analysis, and pays attention and healing to the deprecating experiences that BIPOC encounter in traditional eco-academic institutions. This program is offered to individuals ages 21-35 who self-identify as BIPOC at no cost to participants. Intentionally, the course is not part of a degree-granting program in order to make high-quality education broadly available to the most historically-excluded populations. The LEFC was designed using backwards design and the Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2017) approach by a diverse group of early-career members of the Critical Ecology Lab, including research ecologists, conservation professionals, and science educators.

The LEFC will take place at sites throughout the San Francisco Bay Area ranging from secondary redwood forests to oak grasslands within Ohlone territory-- the original relatives of this region of California. Weekly personal journaling prompts, asynchronous yoga, and meditation, and other embodiment practices will bridge the gap between visionary ecological thinking and personal wellness and development. A capstone project at the end of the course will transition participants from students to practitioners, setting a template for work that they will conduct beyond the program.