LECL Course Descriptions

Please see the course planning table for anticipated course offerings from 2008-2011.

EPFA 410/510: Ecology and Social Justice (4)
What have social classes, gender, ethnic and race relations got to do with ecology in the greater Portland area and North America? Are there various types of environmentalisms depending upon how people concerned are situated in a particular culture of habitat and “relations of ruling? This course addresses these questions within the rubric of Earth Democracy, while expanding democracy to include intra and intergenerational democracy as well as inter-species democracy, intercultural democracy and inter-economic systems democracy. While intercultural democracy seeks equal recognition and respect for all bio-cultural diversities, inter-economic systems democracy seeks mutually beneficial exchange between producers and consumers, industry and agriculture, and rural and urban livelihoods.
 

EPFA 410/510: Global Indigenous Cultures: Journey into Biocultural Diversities (4)
This course documents how the resurgence of global indigenous peoples interfaces with the global ecological resurgence since 1992—the watershed year in the history of European colonization of the rest of the world. Within the rubric of biocultural diversities, this course covers a host of “indigenous peoples” and all the other peasant and agri-centric civilizations that derive their primary livelihoods from their immediate environment—soil, water, forest and so on. This course uses biocultural diversities as a theoretical framework and explore how nature and culture have co-evolved overtime in different cultural locations and how their survival, livelihoods, identity and knowledge systems are dependent upon keeping the integrity of their ecosystems.
 

EPFA 410/510: LECL Naturalist Training (2-4)
This course offers cutting-edge multi-sensory participation in our embodied ecosystems through which one learns the language of the more than human world by practicing arts, sciences, and crafts rooted in sustainable earth based cultures. Students are engaged in restoring the bond between people and the natural world in order to foster our sense of place and embrace this earth as our own home. This course returns to those hunting gathering roots of awareness and learning tested and refined through thousands of years of human survival.
 

EPFA 410/510: Permaculture and Whole Systems Design I (4)
Building on the work of permaculture co-originators Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, this course looks at the later development of these ideas by Patrick Whitefield, Lea Harrison, and other 2nd- and 3rd-generation permaculturists, the course presents permaculture as an ethically based whole-systems design that uses concepts, principles, and methods derived from ecosystems, indigenous peoples, and other time-tested systems to create sustainable human settlements and institutions. This course will explore permaculture in-depth while also reviewing the evolution of whole-systems design, and the application of self-organization design.
 

EPFA 410/510: Permaculture and Whole Systems Design II (4)
This course builds upon the knowledge gained in Part I of Permaculture and Whole Systems (required prerequisite), and explore, in-depth, methods of whole systems design, advanced pattern literacy, biomimicry, appropriate technology, energy systems, land use philosophy and practice, and education and teaching methods in permaculture. Much of the course will be presented through experiential learning exercises, group discussion and projects, and hands-on activities. A portion of this course is dedicated to a final design project, in which student teams will create a permaculture design for Learning Gardens Laboratory, JEANS Urban Farm, or other suitable sites.
 

EPFA 431U: Gandhi, Zapata and Topics in New Agrarianism (4)
What is the role of food, land and agriculture in the imagination of an ecologically sustainable, socially just, and bio-culturally diverse future? This course examines the legacies Mahatma Gandhi and Emiliano Zapata might have for the emergent local food economy in North America and in individual student’s bioregion. While firmly grounded in the farms and gardens in the Portland Metro area, students review local, bioregional and global trends in production, distribution and marketing of food, and develop comparative perspectives.
 

EPFA 448U: Introduction to Global Political Ecology (4)
This course surveys a broad range of topics at the convergence of thinking about ecology and globalization. Students examine how the emergence of a global economy along with its technological, financial, and institutional developments has impacted life for both human and non-human communities. To apply these concepts and personalize the historical material, the focus is on various “commodities” with which we interact, such as salmon, tomatoes, and oil. As a foil to the global aspect, this course emphasizes the relocalization approach and examine ways in which local communities are generating alternatives to those aspects of globalization that are seen to be unjust, disempowering, and even eco-cidal. 

EPFA 449U: Spiritual Leadership (4)
This course focuses on traditional and modern perspectives of “religiousness” and what is often called the “spiritual.” Students discuss how such notions are integrated with the “whole of living” including what it means “to be fully human.” Students also probe into whether secular leadership of something spiritual is different from spiritual leadership of something secular, and if so, how. All projects and readings are designed to create an open inquiry into the question of “What is spiritual leadership?”
 

EPFA 450U: Introduction to Leadership for Sustainability (4)
This multi-media seminar course reviews, analyzes and critiques the history, politics and rhetoric of sustainability. Students are exposed to a variety of whole systems design in sustainability as well as examples from the grassroots including the growing conservation economy in the Pacific Northwest, and the issue of indigenous cultures and sustainability. Students apply these concepts in real life by developing a wildest dream project in sustainability and outlining social, natural and economic capital needed to implement it.
 

EPFA 501: Theory and Practice of Sustainability (1-4)
This course offers a great addition to LECL core curriculum content by showing the application of theories and models in sustainability design, social justice, and bio-cultural diversity. Through lectures and hands-on workshops with and from about 3-5 visiting scholars each term, we explore real life examples of how these individuals and institutions have developed the vision and implemented that vision in various areas of sustainability. Invited visiting scholars are selected keeping in view the learning needs of LECL students as well as the diversity of fields and approaches, they represent.

EPFA 503: LECL Thesis/EPFA 506: LECL Culminating Project (2)
These courses are designed to help students define, develop and present a project or paper that demonstrates a satisfactory level of knowledge and skill related to their chosen LECL area of concentration. Students who have completed substantial amount of core courses take this course in three consecutive terms, usually fall, winter and spring quarters. Students need instructor's permission before enrolling in the course.
  
EPFA 510: Ecological Education in K-8 School (4)
Designed for the purpose of professional development for practicing K-12 principals and educators, this course researches principles of ecological education in K-8 schools through readings, class discussions, field study/observations, and curriculum development. In collaborative teams, participants revise, and revisit existing curriculum modules as well as develop curriculum to be used in K-12 classrooms. 

EPFA 510: Urban Education Farm: Food Policy, Curriculum Design, and Action! (1-4)
This course offers a facilitated learning experience in the theory and practice of developing and implementing theoretically-based, behaviorally driven curriculum for garden-based learning experiences that are tied to the Oregon state benchmarks. This course also develops standardized menu of garden-based learning curriculum that has been pilot tested for teachers and garden coordinators to choose from the Learning Gardens Project and the needs of individual students.
 

EPFA 516/616: Collaborative Ethnographic Research Methods (4)
Are there research methods that help us to gain knowledge, skills and worldviews that in turn help create a world that is livable, ecologically sustainable, socially just and bio-culturally diverse? Can research promote knowledge democracy, and give ownership to those whose knowledge it is and should own it. Methodologies covered are: different genres of qualitative methods, community-based planning and research, participatory action-research, Gaian participatory science, classical ethnography, auto-ethnography, ethnographic performance, life histories, feminist methodologies, and “dialogue circles.”
 

EPFA 517/617: Ecological and Cultural Foundations of Learning (4)
This course explores how we teach and learn ecologically and what constitutes ecological and cultural ways of knowing in environmental education, nature education, outdoors education, food and garden based education, place-based education and other such genres. This course is beyond simply justifying or advocating that our education should be grounded in ecological principles but explores the intersection of what Dr. Parajuli calls the “earthshed,” “humanshed,” and “learningshed.” Building on works of David Abram, Jeannette Armstrong, Zenobia Barlow, Wendell Berry, Fritjof Capra, David Orr, Dilafruz Williams, Madhu Prakash, Greg Smith, David Sobel and others, this course engages in multi-sensory and interdisciplinary pedagogical inquiry. 

EPFA 519: Sustainability Education (4)
In order to build a robust theory and practice of sustainability education, this course covers local, national and global innovations in light of the UN decade for Education for Sustainability (2005-15). While critically assessing earlier traditions such as nature education, environmental education, outdoor education, place-based education, and ecological literacy; students are involved in developing curriculum and teacher preparation modules for K-12, higher education and or community organizations. 

EPFA 548: Advanced Global Political Ecology (4)
In order to grasp the emerging discipline of political ecology, we discuss the following: the impact of a globalized economy on human and non-human communities; the relationship between poverty, global inequity and environmental degradation, the distribution of resource use and conflicts between the global North and global South, the ecological processes, earth democracy and the relationship of these issues in our personal lives. Students apply these concepts in real life through a multi-media study and presentation of a chosen commodity in terms of its production, distribution and consumption.
 

EPFA 550: Leadership for Sustainability (4)
This multi-media seminar course reviews, analyzes and critiques the history, politics and rhetoric of sustainability. Four key themes are covered within the rubric of leadership for sustainability: whole systems design in sustainability, the issue of “fairness in a fragile earth” surrounding the Johannesburg summit of 2002, the growing conservation economy in the Pacific Northwest, and the issue of indigenous cultures and sustainability. Students apply these concepts in real life by developing a wildest dream project in sustainability and outlining social, natural and economic capital needed to implement it.