Entails serving as a teaching assistant in a course previously completed with a satisfactory grade. Introduces strategies for the planning, preparation, presentation, and evaluation required for teaching at the college level. Students work with the faculty member teaching the class to develop a detailed plan for participation in the teaching of the class prior to the beginning of the semester in which the course is offered. This course may be repeated once if serving as a teaching assistant in a different course. Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing, prior completion of the course with a grade of B or higher, and permission of instructor.

Explores time management, reading, writing, and note taking strategies. Students meet individually with the instructor to identify learning strengths and weaknesses. Students are encouraged to be proactive in identifying learning problems and in finding appropriate strategies to overcome these difficulties. Students develop communication skills and motivation to make full use of instructional faculty and realize their own learning potential. This course focuses on learning readiness to facilitate students' abilities to understand their own learning styles and develop the strategies necessary to function independently in a college setting. Entails discussions and individual conferences. Graded on a pass/fail basis.

Students practice writing for the diverse audiences involved in contemporary environmental issues. Readings and discussions focus on the writing process and how texts are constructed in response to specific rhetorical situations. Coursework includes written summaries, briefs, letters, editorials, and researched academic arguments. Students also lead discussions of argumentative readings on environmental issues, work in small groups, review each other's written work, and present their own work orally.

Diverse readings chronicling the power of individuals and groups who face physical hardship yet maintain or even enhance their basic humanity provide a basis for discussion and writing. Works include expedition histories, essays, survival sagas, diaries, and films illuminating people's quest for challenge, as well as their responses to adversity. Class discussions and written assignments focus on both content and style with the intent that students develop their appreciation of artistic quality as well as their insights into the human urge for challenge.

Focuses on the design and creation of projects using wood. Provides experience in a range of woodworking techniques through individual projects using hand and power tools. Each student designs and builds a wood joinery project to be exhibited at a public show. Students buy their own wood and supplies for the project. Prerequisite: SS110, with paddle making, or equivalent.

A skills-based competency course designed to teach basic black and white photography and darkroom techniques. Combines small group instruction and practice in the college darkroom. Students learn basic steps: how to load bulk film, develop negatives, and produce and mount finished prints. The emphasis is on practical skills and demonstrated competencies. Lab fee.

Provides an overview of the use of 35mm equipment to produce top-quality natural history images for illustration, publication, education, and exhibition. This course in interpretive nature photography is ideal for educators and interpreters who wish to use photography to enhance their presentations and lectures. Diverse local ecosystems are visited to give students a range of subjects upon which to focus and to employ the techniques covered in lectures. Students are required to provide their own cameras and cover costs of film and film processing.

Emphasizes techniques and theories of artistic expression as they relate to the natural world and draws upon the work of artists and scientists who have involved themselves in investigation of the natural world.

Students study one or more traditional arts that are now little practiced. An example of a project is traditional snowshoe making - each student makes a pair of snowshoes in the style of the Attikamek Indians of Quebec, beginning with felling a tree for the staves and preparing a deerskin for rawhide lacing. Lab fee.

Students focus on professional presentation skills while analyzing and summarizing an internship experience. Critical reflection, narrative writing, and public speaking are practiced as students work to create a 15-minute public presentation using some form of audio-visual technology. Prerequisite: SS300.

Discussion of the values and influences of rural life as reflected in selections from North American regional literature. Includes an investigation of literary devices and style in these works. This course meets the requirement for two Humanities credits emphasizing textual analysis and written critical response.

The use of animal and plant fibers, both wild and cultivated, has ancient and world-wide roots. Products carefully and lovingly made from the fiber resources at hand have served people well for millennia

Throughout the world, storytelling has served to transmit knowledge and illumine the nights. In many indigenous cultures, this tradition is still active, embodied in the stories themselves, or in the music, masks and other art, dance, ritual, and food. In addition to studying the folklore and ecology of stories, songs, and traditions of northern peoples, students will prepare storytelling events. This course meets the requirement for two Humanities credits emphasizing textual analysis and written critical response. Prerequisite: HM/NS/SS255 Introduction to the North or permission of the instructor.

Individual project relating to the Sterling College curriculum under the supervision of an appropriate faculty member. First-year students are eligible to do an independent study in their second semester. To do a spring independent study, a first-year student must submit an initial proposal to a faculty sponsor two weeks prior to the end of the fall semester. For all students, the faculty sponsor and the Dean of Academics must approve final proposals before the end of the first week of classes in the semester for which the study is proposed.

Individual project relating to the Sterling College curriculum under the supervision of an appropriate faculty member. First-year students are eligible to do an independent study in their second semester. To do a spring independent study, a first-year student must submit an initial proposal to a faculty sponsor two weeks prior to the end of the fall semester. For all students, the faculty sponsor and the Dean of Academics must approve final proposals before the end of the first week of classes in the semester for which the study is proposed.

Individual project relating to the Sterling College curriculum under the supervision of an appropriate faculty member. First-year students are eligible to do an independent study in their second semester. To do a spring independent study, a first-year student must submit an initial proposal to a faculty sponsor two weeks prior to the end of the fall semester. For all students, the faculty sponsor and the Dean of Academics must approve final proposals before the end of the first week of classes in the semester for which the study is proposed.

Examines the importance of landscape and place in contemporary theology and ethics. We look specifically at how many contemporary theologians in Jewish, Christian, and Eastern traditions are responding to the sense of global ecological crisis. We also ask what contributions theologians can make to the current debates about sustainability. Assignments include readings, group discussions, response papers, and group projects. This course meets the requirement for two Humanities credits emphasizing textual analysis and written critical response.

Examines the importance of landscape and place in the works of some contemporary spiritual and nature writers, including Annie Dillard, Black Elk, Peter Matthiessen, Thomas Merton, Aldo Leopold, Gretel Ehrlich, and Rachel Carson. We consider spirituality of place in Western, Eastern, and Native American traditions. Assignments include readings, group discussions, response papers, and a final reflection paper. This course meets the requirement for two Humanities credits emphasizing textual analysis and written critical response.

Open for topics of special interest to faculty and students in a particular year. A group wishing to initiate a course will draw up a detailed syllabus to keep on file and submit it to the Dean of Academics for approval. A recent example is The Art of Place. Students were introduced to tools for community building such as labyrinths, stone rings, and circle dance.

This class will focus on creating art related to the landscape of the Black River Watershed. It is open to students with any level of experience with art. The class will employ a combination of on-site art making, discussion, individual meetings and group critiques to facilitate the understanding and the practice of making landscape art. We will focus primarily on the activities of drawing and painting. Specifically we will spend time painting and sketching in the field. We will attempt to organize our work around salient features of the local landscape wit brief field trips in the Black River Valley and Lake Memphremagog.