Wendell Berry often quotes Alexander Pope’s line “Consult the genius of the place in all.” We take Pope’s phrase as our maxim for our class called Place.
The goal of this class is to learn to understand the flora, fauna, and peoples of northwestern Washington. We begin by learning how to draw, and over the course of the year, students build a portfolio of studies of native plants. Our study of native history uses Heidi Bohan’s The People of Cascadia,which chronicles the lives of the Chinookan, Coast Salish, Sahaptin, and Wakashan peoples, as well as Erna Gunther’s Ethnobotany of Western Washington. Our primary reference for plant identification is Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
Second-year students continue to study and draw native plants and deepen their knowledge by learning to perform “forest forensics” and studying Goethe’s The Metamorphosis of Plants and selections from D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s On Growth and Form.
Our science curriculum begins with art because to learn how to draw is to learn how to seeobjects as they really are rather than as we imagine them to be. Learning to draw gives students the ability to record their observations of nature.
In addition to spending time in the woods and on the beach, we partner with local farms and environmental and gardening organizations to give students hands-on experience throughout the year with growing and harvesting.