How Did This Landscape Form? A Field-Based Exercise to Enhance Awareness of the Natural Environment
Lyn Gualtieri, Seattle University
In this activity students will investigate a landform (such as a waterfall or lake) in the field and apply the scientific method to come up with a geologic hypothesis. The focus of the activity is on making observations of the natural environment and fostering a "sense of place."

Interviewing the Past: Developing a Sense of Place through Oral Histories
Bob Abel, Olympic College
Local changes in climate, flora, fauna, and the human population can be anecdotally explored through interviews with long time locals.

Developing a Sense of Place with Pre-service Science Teachers
Andrew Gilbert, The Evergreen State College
The lesson content focuses on designing investigations concerning the notion of scale through a series of investigations on their campus. The overarching goal is to foster a connection to the earth through an investigation of the local environment.

Producing Bioregional Knowledge and Understanding: Student Projects Based on Field Learning
Susan Digby, Olympic College
Students produce a set of eight personal travel 'insights' from field trips within their bioregion. Each insight consists of an image produced by the student and accompanying text; students are producers of meaning rather than consumers.

Wilderness Practice within the Circumference of the Collegiate Home
Elizabeth Sikes, Seattle University
This is a field activity that reinforces the concept of what Gary Snyder calls "a practice of the wild," that is, a practice that engages and connects the whole person within the local ecological community broadly conceived.

Bioregion Assignment
Claus Svendsen, Department of Environmental Conservation, Skagit Valley College
A weekly bioregion homework assignment exploring for the student local landscape changes. What were the past natural conditions and native uses to todays uses, as well as projected changes in the coming decades.

Indigenous Food Relationships: Sociological Impacts on the Coast Salish People
Ane Berrett, Nothwest Indian College
In this unit, students will analyze the macro level of societal influences which have interrupted micro level ecological relationship between plant and man. Sociological concepts such as sub culture, dominant culture, stages of historical change (Hunter Gatherer societies to Technological societies), stratification and poverty will be addressed through the sociological perspective. Students will experience solutions of sustainability which are interdependent with local place and people. Learning activities involve using the "citizen's argument," oral presentations, portfolio creation, written reflections and experiential service learning projects.

Race and Space
Lindsay Custer, Cascadia Community College
This assignment exposes students to racial inequalities in their own communities and helps them to identify the impact of racial segregation on quality of life. The big ideas in this assignment are racial inequality, residential segregation, and environmental justice.

Ethnographic Methods for Community Visioning
Karen Gaul, The Evergreen State College
This project involves students in substantial community-based ethnographic research. Working cooperatively together as a consultancy team, the students learn to use ethnographic and other research methods. They also learn to empower and give voice to various stakeholders and to assemble and synthesize data for a formal report.

State of Your Own Backyard
Ardi Kveven, Ocean Research College Academy at Everett Community College
Students evaluate water quality data as indicators of the health of an ecosystem and manage, graph and analyze data from an online database. This activity is designed to facilitate student interest in their ecosystem, focusing on where they live.