Field Trips
"Meeting the people living out the histories and cultures we have only read about has changed the way I see their world and mine."
- Student comment on course evaluation
Field trips often shift students' perceptions and attitudes about course content as applied to real situations in the region. Besides hearing from community leaders and professional practitioners, field trips sometimes involve real work: helping with research on an endangered species through observation and field notes, or helping villagers clean their vega (common lands) in exchange for presentations on community history and issues.
The four-week block immerses students in readings and lectures; the field trip immerses students in the landscapes, communities, cultures and ecosystems that populate the Southwest. With no concern about conflicting classes, field trips can span from one day to two weeks.
SW220: Environmental Justice in the Southwest
Explore conflicts and commonalities between practicing environmentalists (pastoral cultures of New Mexico and southern Colorado) and card-carrying environmentalists. Course topics include historic, economic, and social origins of conflicts between these rural cultures and urban environmentalists and today's response by pastoral cultures to re-create equitable economies that sustain environment and culture. Field trip to New Mexico and southern Colorado.
Cultures of Water in the Southwest
Discuss the cultures, history, and politics of water in the Southwest. Meet with water diversion project managers, hydrologists, and acequia organizations and majordomos.