Earth Cultivation

How does the Earth provide what humans need to eat, wear, build, create, and heal? Students explore the journey from living ecosystems to the materials of everyday life: growing food, transforming plants into fibers and natural dyes, building with earth and other renewable materials, and learning about the traditional uses of medicinal plants. Hands-on projects in gardening, weaving, natural building, and plant-based making are enriched by excursions to local farms, homesteads, gardens, and community spaces. Through relationships with growers, land stewards, fiber artists, herbalists, and natural builders, students encounter the living knowledge held within their wider community. The course invites learners to see sustainability not only as using fewer resources, but as cultivating reciprocal relationships with the land and the people who care for it.