Program overview
The not-so-simple act of observation is a lost art. Join accomplished artist Libby Davidson (artist behind the beautiful drawings in Wetland Woodland Wildland) and writer Heather Fitzgerald (author of the Kids VT series, Good Nature) to practice slowing down, nurturing your creativity, deepening your understanding of the natural world, and strengthening your connection to place.
Learn to see like an artist, scientist, and writer, and unlock the mysteries that surround us in both our forests and our own backyards. Throughout, we’ll explore how to incorporate these concepts into our daily lives.
If you are an educator, you will have the opportunity to discuss together and create lessons that incorporate the principles and practices into your classrooms.
Course Format
- Lecture and Discussion: We’ll lecture/demonstrate/discuss major topics (indoors or outdoors, as dictated by weather and group desires) before setting you loose to apply them.
- Field Trips: Most of our time will be spent outdoors, where you’ll get to try out the skills you have been learning, both in small groups and individually. We’ll travel to different natural areas in Chittenden County where you’ll have the opportunity to practice identifying different trees, herbs, voices of bird language, natural communities, and major disturbances. You’ll have the chance to make mistakes and solve mysteries collectively, as well as to discuss locations from your own lives that you have questions about.
- Sketching: You’ll also learn different sketching techniques every day and apply them to everything from tiny insects to giant landscapes.
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Serendipity: We’ll structure in a little breathing room, so you have time to explore on your own and connect with others.
Flow of the day
The flow of each day will follow a similar pattern, though the exact timing and structure may depend on the weather, field site, and topic. Here’s a rough sketch of what our days will look like:
- Arrive at North Avenue Alliance Church or field site
- Explore site, applying the pieces, patterns, and processes we are covering for the day
- Debrief findings and make event maps
- Over lunch, discuss new understandings and classroom applications with fellow students
- After lunch, watch demos of new art techniques, and then practice them at our field site.
Program Objectives
- Practice and demonstrate an attentive receptivity to the natural world by experimenting with the relationship between field sketching, writing, and close observation, and consider the ways you can bring these understandings to other areas of your life (and, for educators, your classroom).
- Practice and demonstrate sketching like an artist through demonstrating the techniques modeled during class.
- Practice and demonstrate reading like a writer using the techniques and tools shared during class.
- Practice and demonstrate observing like a naturalist and scientist using the techniques, tools, and information covered during class.
These four objectives are complex, interdependent, and ongoing tasks, but we will break them down into manageable chunks. Collectively, you may experience these objectives as starting to see details.
Faculty
Heather Fitzgerald
Naturalist, Writer, Educator
