Wild Abundance Details

Who: Open to the public (herbalists, K-12 educators, and naturalists of all abilities welcome). There are no prerequisite skills required for the course. Participants should expect some light hiking, off trail exploration.
When: July 28 – August 1, 2025
Where: Burlington, VT with field trips to nearby natural areas
Cost: $725, includes lunch, resource packet, and a copy of Wetland, Woodland, Wildland. Optional: $450 for graduate credits (3) through Vermont State University. Financial aid may be available.


Program overview

The medicine of wild plants is all around us! In this immersive, hands-on course, we will explore the environmental and social history of the wild and weedy plants labeled as “invasive” in Vermont. How did these specific plant species end up in our crosshairs, and how are they tied to modern human impact? What can we learn from the plants that show up so abundantly in our path? We will spend our time together identifying and mapping a few key plant species that are “invasive” in Vermont, working to understand their role in our ecosystem. By harvesting, processing and tasting these plants, we will explore their traditional and modern uses as food and medicine.

Students should expect to:

  • Build their knowledge of basic medicinal plant preparations
  • Make teas, tinctures, and topicals
  • Hone their plant identification skills

Students will end the week with an apothecary of wild medicine, and deepened perspectives on what a shared future with these wildly abundant plants might look like.

Want a more detailed look at the course

For prospective participants, check out the detailed syllabus, which has details on each day, resources to guide your study, sample worksheets, lectures, field sites, and plenty of other helpful information


Course Format

Coming soon

Teacher Testimonials

“More than anything this course helped me develop a way of thinking about and discovering the stories of a place. Teage gave us so many tools – introducing us to possible sites for field trips, practicing rapid site evaluation and tree ids, but also group discovery process to build our capacity to recognize patterns and unearth what’s happened here.”

Brian, Middle School Teacher

“This course gave me a huge content boost that I needed. While I may not get to the depth of this content with elementary students, it’s important to understand the bigger picture context and details. The hands-on exploration and analysis of field sites is a perfect model to use with students to enable them to apply their knowledge to construct a deeper understanding of landscapes. I can envision using these models with elementary students. I will also take and share the online activities (Where’s Waldo, image identification, etc.) to use with students in the event of continued remote learning. I know colleagues were struggling with ideas to keep kids engaged as time went on.”

Courtney, Elementary School Teacher

“This course is definitely in my top 3 courses of all time! I loved everything about it–the structure (lectures followed by most of the day outside in the field), then content, and the activities. It felt like summer camp for adults. It’s hard to pick one highlight. I really enjoyed learning more about sites around our community–most of which I have never been to. Going to the Lamoille Cave was probably the biggest highlight for me, although I truly enjoyed learning about each site. The food was incredible, too!”

Sarah, High School Teacher

“It deepened my sense of place and understanding of the natural communities in which I teach. I will be able to help kids ask questions, look for evidence, and make their own guesses about what is going on in the natural communities around them, how things got that way, and what they might look like in the future.”

Dylan, Middle School Teacher

Faculty

Sophie Cassel staff photo

Sophie Cassel

Community & Clinical Herbalist

Sophie Cassel (she/her) is a student of the plants, educator, land tender, and creative force behind Patchwork Plant Medicine. She believes in weaving webs of care, and the transformative process of connecting one’s own body and experience to the living world around us. She has a special affinity for working with clients to rebuild vitality through addressing chronic digestive concerns, mental and emotional wellbeing, and circadian rhythm dysregulation.