Land-Based Learning: Foodways

What can happen when we learn how to learn through connections, ours and others, with the land?  This interdisciplinary, multi-quarter program will be inquiry-driven:

• For whom and why has land meant sustenance, belonging and identity more than property?
• Where and when does agriculture mean food sovereignty more than continued extractive settler colonialism?
• How can food’s culture mean re-connecting seeds, plant breeders, growers, cooks, and eaters with food's food?
• What are the historical relationships and future responsibilities between knowledge of the land and educational institutions?

Using case studies and experiential learning we'll address food and intersectionalities, applied agroecological agriculture, community gardening, food sovereignty, foodoirs and land memoirs, and stewardship. Students will create their own texts to synthesize and apply their reading of diverse texts such as Valerie Segrest and Elise Krohn’s Live with the Seasons, Monica White’s Freedom Farmers, GRuB’s Tend, Gather, and Grow, Leah Penniman’s Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Guide to Liberation on the Land, Amitav Ghosh's The Nutmeg's Curse, and Enduring Legacies: Native Cases.

Our fields of inquiry will flex in relation to student interest, skills, community partnerships, and seasonality:

• Land-Based Learning: With GRuB's Tend, Gather, Grow curriculum as a guide, we will experience land-based education firsthand on Evergreen's 1000 acres.

• Campus Farm and Gardens Practicum:  In collaboration with Food and Agriculture Path programs we will gain practical experience on the campus farm and gardens bringing farm crops, value-added products, and tastings to market each week as part of Evergreen’s farm stand.

• Field to Flavor:  We will learn about the evolution of flavor, aroma, mouthfeel and the so-called "X factor." Through sensory assessment, participatory culinary breeding networks, and the expressive arts, we'll explore how we are (and aren't) the tastes we swallow. During fall quarter we'll collaborate with the Music in Myth and Literature program, which will focus on the multisensory as well as preparing interested students for a winter and spring quarter Study Abroad in Trinidad and Tobago: Heritage, Cultural Diversity, and Sustainability. (See separate study abroad listing.)

• Land, Education, and the Archive: What is the history of farming and land-based education on Evergreen’s campus? How does this history relate to broader histories of college and university involvement in land use and farming practices? We'll learn the histories of land-grant colleges, agricultural extension units, cooperative and mutual aid societies, educational connections to state formation and regional planning, and about efforts to reassert Traditional Ecological Knowledge within higher education. Learning will include hands-on experiences in local, regional, and digital archives.

• In-Program ILC Projects in Food and Ag: In coordination with faculty and community partners students will be supported to design their own in-program Individual Learning Contract (ILC) related to program themes. These projects might include: K-12 community school garden internships; community food system field studies; research in ag education; and projects in relation to Study Abroad in Trinidad and Tobago or a study abroad of student design

This program is coordinated with Greener Foundations for first-year students. Greener Foundations is Evergreen’s in-person 2-quarter introductory student success course sequence, which provides first-year students with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive at Evergreen. Students expected to take Greener Foundations will be prompted to register for a 2-credit Greener Foundations course in addition to this 14-credit program during fall registration and will be automatically registered for the same 16 credits in winter.

Fall Anticipated Credit Equivalencies

5 - Experiential Learning: Foodways (3 credits if in Greener Foundations)

4 - Historical and Social Foundations of Agriculture Education

4 - The Evergreen State College Farm and Garden Practicum

3 - Field to Flavor: Foodways Lab