Professor D’Amore Dives into I4E Spaces!

Here at St. Michael’s College we encourage faculty and staff to get creative with their courses and utilize the Leahy Institute for Environment’s (LI4E) living laboratories. Picture, a philosophy class taking a mindful moment in the rock garden or a statistics course outdoors collecting data on the distribution of pollinators in the Natural Area. There are abundant learning opportunities in the living laboratories the LI4E helps to steward.

We chatted with one professor who creatively utilizes these spaces. English professor Maura D’Amore, has gone above and beyond this semester to integrate her classes with the LI4E’s beautiful outdoor classrooms. She has taken a creative look at the content of her English class, “In the Garden”, and turned her eyes outside! Her class focuses on the synergies between writing and gardening. There is no better way to inspire students’ writings than spending time in gardens surrounded by nature.

Professor D’Amore sees the time spent on the Farm and in the campus gardens as “offering experiences where students can encounter plants firsthand, to supplement and extend their reading, and hopefully, to inspire their writing.” Throughout the semester, her class has visited the campus Farm, pressed plants from specimens they collected in the teaching gardens, and took a “weed walk” through the natural area – just to name a few of their learning expeditions.

The teaching garden has been living up to its name, providing a tangible space for students to make their own connections to the course literature. Inspired by their readings from the 1843 British Algae book, students made their own “cyanotypes” (see photo below).

While the connection to cyanotypes was clear, D’Amore writes that “although the time outdoors rarely directly connects to something we are reading … I am hoping that our conversations about language and ideas and histories will be flitting around in their heads as they move and work and touch and look and smell in different cultivated areas.” As a result of Professor D’Amore’s efforts to connect students to the outdoor classrooms, some students experienced the Farm for the first time as seniors! The students were grateful for the opportunity to learn more about their school, while also having a nontraditional classroom experience.

Professor D’Amore’s outlook embodies the Institute’s goal, to bring learning to life through experiences in the environment we all live in! Here at the LI4E we encourage students and faculty to think outside of the box and be active stewards within the beautiful landscape of Vermont.

Does this article have you feeling inspired?

Whether its opening up a real life Secret Garden or creating an advertising campaign for our natural spaces with your marketing classes, there are endless opportunities to connect with the outdoors! If you need support to get the creative juices flowing, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at the Leahy Institute for the Environment – email environment@smcvt.edu or stop by the office in St. Edmunds Hall 119, Tuesday-Friday from 8am-5pm.