Fostering sense of place and connection to nature: integrating phenology, community science and reflective journaling through an interdisciplinary climate course

Background/Question/Methods

Undergraduate education often separates “place” from pedagogy. Incorporating place into pedagogical approaches through “living laboratory” frameworks can provide benefits that include improving well-being, increasing “pro-environmental” behavior, and fostering a sense of belonging, as well as providing more diverse on-ramps to learning. Here, we share results from engaging a large (90 student) interdisciplinary Climate Crisis course at Wellesley College, a liberal arts college set on a 500 acre campus with a diversity of landscape types, in a place-based, community science phenology project. With “Place” as the theme of the course and faculty from the humanities and sciences, students from all majors built a holistic understanding of the climate crisis and were encouraged to develop a connection to nature and place on campus by carefully observing seasonal changes through the spring semester. Students entered data on plant and animal phenophases into the National Phenology Network which was paired with journal prompts asking students to reflect on their observations and engage more deeply with the landscape. We evaluated the impact of the course on student experience and connection to nature and place using student journal entries through the semester and a pre/post assessment on connection to nature and place.

Results/Conclusions

The Climate Crisis course served as an opportunity for students to make connections to seasonal changes on the campus landscape, while integrating this experience into the material in the course. Over 75% of students agreed that their own welfare is linked to the welfare of the natural world and agree with other metrics of connection to nature in the pre-survey and over 60% feel they belong at Wellesley. These metrics provide insight into how courses using the campus as a living laboratory may shift students’ connection to nature and sense of place. We also share the challenges and benefits of developing a large “living laboratory” community science course with students across disciplines. Challenges include difficulties with the citizen science app, providing opportunities for students to learn species identification, and detracting from the developing a strong connection to nature through technical challenges and data entry. Benefits include developing a long-term database on campus phenology that is linked to a national database, as well as providing time for students to spend time outside and engage deeply with their landscape. Outcomes will inform future iterations of this and other living laboratory courses at Wellesley.