Welcome
Past Blocks
  Food & Ag.
  Adirondacks
  Vermont Wilderness
  Hudson River
  Champlain Basin
  The Northern Forest

Past Block Courses

Food, Agriculture, & Community Development in the Northeast
2006 (9 credits)
Anthropology, economics, ecology

This fall '06 class rose to the challenge of exploring ways to offer more local foods in the college dining hall. Visiting roughly a dozen farms to determine the viability of offering their foods on campus, the class will get an in-depth view of how the food choices we make affect the community around us. Students will hear from national food and agricultural experts, including John Turenne, former executive chef at Yale. The class's culminating project will be to draw up sustainable purchasing guidelines for the Withey Dining Hall, in cooperation with the Cerridwen Farm and Director of Dining Services David Ondria. This is being offered by Philip Ackerman-Leist (environmental studies), Jacob Park (business & public policy), and Eleanor Tison (cultural anthropology).

The Adirondacks
2004 (15 credits)
Chemistry, anthropology, geology, forest management, human ecology

Subtitled "Forces Sculpting the Landscape— People and Nature Making a Region," this course examined the history of the treasured 6.3 million-acre Adirondacks region from two perspectives: natural, and social. Students read about and toured the Adirondacks to learn the ways in which, since the time of the Native Americans, the development of the region has been an interplay of human intervention and natural occurrences. Students visited Lake Placid, rafted down the Hudson River, canoed Lake Lila, toured Huntington Forest and the Adirondack Museum, and visited the International Paper Mill on the lake. This course was offered by Professors Mark Dailey (sociology/anthropology), Jim Harding (recreation), Tom Mauhs-Pugh (education), Sue Sutheimer (chemistry), and John Van Hoesen (geology).

The Vermont Wilderness Debate
2002 (9 credits)
Adventure recreation, environmental policy, philosophy

Starting in 2001, the National Forest Service sparked a contentious debate that would last nearly five years, and end with the controversial designation of more than 57,000 new acres of Vermont forest as "wilderness." The GMC block The Vermont Wilderness Debate was designed to immure students in the then-ongoing debate, to examine each perspective (whether students agreed or not), and learn about the complexity of what happens when a thorny environmental management issue enters into the public forum. In addition to the class's focus on wildlife policy and law, students were required to undergo at least one solo wilderness experience--a backpacking or camping trip, or some other outdoor expedition. This course was offered by Professors Laird Christensen (english), Rebecca Purdom (law & policy), Bob Riley (recreation), and Bill Throop (philosophy).

The Hudson River
2001 (15 credits)
History, biology, environmental policy, literature

The Hudson River block course traced the history of the river, from its glacial formation to the present. The twenty students and four professors in the course spent time in the field each week, beginning at the source of the river in the Adirondacks and concluding with an exploration of the river at its end in New York City. Along the way, students took into account the present-day controversies surrounding the Hudson, including the then-divisive debate about whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should dredge PCBs from the river sediment. This class was offered by Professors Meriel Brooks (biology), Patricia Moore (history), Jon Jensen (philosophy) and Laird Christensen (english).

The Champlain Basin
1999 (15 credits)
Biology, economics, chemistry, geography

The Champlain Basin block took Vermont's beautiful Lake Champlain, on the border between Vermont and New York State, as its theme. Students explored the lake itself and studied the long-term affect human activity has had on the lake, as well as modern issues involving pollution and economics. This course was offered by Professors Meriel Brooks (biology), Paul Hancock (economics), and two other GMC professors.

The Northern Forest
1998 (15 credits)
Economics, ecology, history, sociology, philosophy

The Northern Forest, the first very block course at GMC, broke the central issue of the Northern Forest into five categories: economics, ecology, history, sociology, and philosophy. The course's objective was to encourage students to look at one issue from multiple perspectives, using five professors as guides.

Students did extensive field work, in projects ranging from ecological research to analyses of value conflicts among people, to creation of educational materials, and the formulation of policy proposals. The process of identifying the perspectives and values of stakeholders, defining problems, and evaluating diverse solutions was designed to provide students the confidence and skills necessary to be active citizens and effective leaders. This course was offered by Professors Kathy Doyle (environmental studies), Steven Letendre (management), Bill Throop (philosophy), Heather McCollum (education), and Tom Mauhs-Pugh (education).