Ecology for a new generation, an ecology course that teaches students to be more whole

After years of lackluster course evaluations for my undergraduate ecology course I scrapped the conventional framework and began teaching ecology with a nature-as-therapy theme. Owing to the frenzied lifestyles of today’s students, there has been dramatic buy in among the participants. I am now writing an ecology textbook that embraces this theme. Natural history, wilderness medicine, animal behavior, and other nature study topics are included, as are ecotherapy activities. Students have found relevance when the emphasis is on gaining personal wholeness through the practice of nature study.