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Audubon expedition institute
M.S. in Ecological Leadership and Education
The M.S. in Ecological Leadership and Education offers students the training needed to become self-motivated educational leaders in the environmental field. Since its inception in 1982, this graduate program has grown to meet the challenges and rewards of a growing ecological consciousness and the changing needs of students.
A graduate degree candidate completes three semesters of Expedition field course work, traveling in diverse regions each semester. The fourth semester of the graduate program is a ten contiguous week minimum practicum, giving the opportunity to work directly with people and organizations orchestrating positive environmental change. As a student progresses through the graduate semesters, skills and abilities are expected to progress as well.
Academic Requirements
At the beginning of each semester, faculty direct their learning communities in discussions to clarify academic goals, expectations, and criteria for assessment and grades. Faculty help their advisees identify their learning objectives and create a plan to achieve them. Students are provided with course syllabi, which they use as the framework for their planning.
Assessment and Grades
Because students enter AEI with varying levels of knowledge, skill and expertise in the various areas of study, AEI uses a self-referencing assessment system. This system assesses achievement in relation to the individual's skill level and growth, rather than using a pre-determined norm. A key to the AEI assessment process is differentiating between simply experiencing something and defining the learning and application gained from a given experience.
Students work within the whole group and within small groups for purposes of assessment and grading. Venues are created to review, support, and critique each other's work throughout the semester. The expectation is for each student to be consistently engaged in self, peer and programmatic assessment.
There are two formal assessment sessions during the semester; one at mid-semester and the other at the semester's end. During these sessions, students thoroughly review and assess their work and that of their peers. Peers and faculty check accuracy and offer suggestions for future work and progress. Students are evaluated on the basis of how well they demonstrate knowledge, understanding, integration, synthesis, and application of course material.
The process for grade determination varies from group to group, depending on faculty design. Students may be asked to submit written course evaluations and grade proposals to their advisor at the end of the semester. They may participate in a group grade, working within a small or large group context to determine grades for one or more courses. Or, they may have an individual interview with faculty to determine a grade for one or more courses. Faculty have final determination on all grades.
Curriculum
The Master of Science in Ecological Leadership and Education is a 39-credit program: 3 semesters of 12 credits each, and a final semester 3-credit internship. Students take a sequence of courses which form a common core of knowledge and skills allowing room for individual focus and specialization.
| Year 1 Semester 1 |
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Self and Culture: a Critical Examination of Worldviews
Through meetings with peoples of different local cultures, students identify their personal belief systems and how culture has helped to define their worldview. Since no one cultural worldview can encompass all perspectives, greater wisdom and understanding can emerge from exposure to other cultures. In addition to identifying the characteristics of cultures with an ecological worldview, students critically examine the dominant culture in North America. |
3 |
Ecology of Place: Environmental Concerns and Ecological Consciousness
In this course students begin the journey towards developing an ecological consciousness—an understanding and appreciation of ecological principles and a personal, emotional, and ethical relationship with the natural world. Through deep and complex interactions with the local bioregion of study, students explore the workings of ecosystems, are introduced to local environmental issues and examine ongoing solution systems. |
3 |
Communication, Group Dynamics and Decision-making
Students learn about group dynamics by consciously creating and living in a learning community for ten weeks. The learning community practices various forms of decision-making, effective and honest communication, conflict resolution, deep self-reflection and learns facilitation and leadership skills. While experiencing this process-oriented education, students learn to balance between personal and collective needs and to take responsibility for personal and community well-being. |
3 |
Ways of Knowing and Being: Ecological Leadership and Education
Through experience, action, and critical reflection, students collaboratively explore transformative approaches to education and leadership. This process involves the deconstruction of dominant concepts of leadership and education, and the examination of pedagogies and leadership theories that integrate ecological and systems theory aimed at creating new possibilities for healthy environmental and cultural change. Working within the structure of a living and learning community, individuals will begin to develop their own practice as transformative educators and leaders. |
3 |
| Year 1 Semester 2 |
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Culture, Spirit and Ethics
Some cultures are strongly determined by their ecological environment; others are much broader and not connected to specific places. This course examines how some cultures reveal their relationship to nature through their moral and spiritual beliefs. We engage in transformative learning in relation to our own cultural moral and spiritual beliefs in order to become ecologically conscious citizens working for social justice. |
3 |
Reading and Living the Landscape
This course is a further investigation of our relationship with the hydrologic, geologic, biotic, and human-influenced factors that shape the ecological landscapes of our field studies. Students utilize interdisciplinary approaches of integral ecology, systems theory, ecological design, and human geography in learning to read the landscape and explore environmental issues and solutions. |
3 |
Sustainable Practices and Communities
As students develop their community skills, ethics and accountability as part of a learning community they explore issues of sustainability. We deepen our capacity for helping ourselves and others become ecologically sensitive citizens as community members and leaders. We learn about how other communities are contributing to ecological sustainability, examine human communities within the context of ecological principles, and reflect on how community life can promote ecological consciousness. |
3 |
Praxis for Social and Environmental Change
We will explore and participate in the educational and leadership practices of groups and individuals seeking to bring about positive change to create a just, equitable, peaceful and sustainable society. We will express ourselves through different communicative modalities, including dialogue, that act as a bridge between differing worldviews. We will actively define our philosophy and practice as leaders and educators, including nurturing a holistic healthy self. |
3 |
| Year 2 Semester 1 |
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Special Topic in Ecology
Designed to offer the student an in-depth investigation into a particular topic of ecological study. The focus of the course will vary from semester to semester depending on the area of expertise of the faculty. It could include such broad topics as: Ornithology, Zoology, Herpetology, or focused topics such as Ungulates, Snakes, or Fire Ecology. The faculty facilitating the course will write the course syllabus. |
2 |
Sustainable Human Ecology
Humankind’s burgeoning population and its expanding activities threaten the ability of the planet to support life. The destruction of ecosystems is leading to unprecedented rate of species extinction, resource consumption, and debilitating human health. In this course, students ask “What would an ecologically sustainable human culture look like? By visiting people who are actively trying to live within the limits and guess of place the students will gain an insight into their own choices in affecting change necessary for sustainability. |
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Ethics of Water and Land Use
Beginning with an overview of the geology of the region, this course explores the conservation and maintenance of the inhabited and wild natural environment. Land use planning, resource management, issues (particularly fisheries and forestry), and aspects of landscape protection systems are examined. This course encourages deliberation regarding personal and cultural environmental ethics. An examination of how humanity integrates with natural systems is a constant point of reference. |
2 |
Learning Communities: Communication, Leadership, and Advocacy
This course addresses the varied levels of leadership, activism and participation within environmentally conscious work. Emphasis will be placed on exploring both professional ethics and personal leadership styles. Issues related to effective communication will be examined: written/oral communication skills, literary criticism, cultural diversity, bias reduction, and community/organizational relations. The evolution of an individual's ability to communicate effectively, in various forums, results from exposure to and analysis of other’s styles, critical analysis and challenging personal experiences. |
2 |
Methods in Environmental Education
This course explores the breadth of work affiliated with environmental education. The teacher, naturalist, lobbyist, journalist, Park ranger, poet and many others each can be involved at some level in educating. This course attempts to:
define environmental education, explore its expression through various jobs and activities and assess the potential effectiveness of environmental education in its varied forms on people and the planet. |
3 |
Approaches to Research and Environmental Education
The primary intention of this course is to expose students to the theoretical and practical aspects of conducting qualitative research within the field of Environmental Education. While positivism remains the dominant paradigm in both education and environmental education, the interpretive and critical inquiry perspectives are gaining much wider acceptance. Although environmental education can be said to be rooted in the natural sciences, its current emphasis on using interdisciplinary approaches and its focus on concepts such as values, holism, interdependence, relationship to the natural world, and social responsibility, suggests that the interpretivist and critical inquiry perspectives are equally as appropriate for guiding research in this field. This course, therefore, has students focusing primarily on qualitative methods used in both interpretive and critical inquiry forms of research. |
3 |
| Year 2 Semester 2 |
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Practicum for Environmental Education
Practicum experience in the field of environmental education. Students select a professional internship or employment opportunity in an area of their choice (with faculty and peer advisement) |
3 |
updated 10/06/08 | 03:27 PM
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