Teaching restoration ecology and culture is a vital pedagogy for multiple reasons. First, we find that students are craving a highly social and relational learning environment. In a post-pandemic world, learning with others is enlivening and it helps develop a sense of collective effort. Second, we find students want to do things with the knowledge they have. Climate change criss  or biodiversity loss are phenomena that can be burdensome to learn about. Bringing students into the field and planning ways to restore habitat or amplify ecosystem services that will buffer against climate impacts, develops a sense of agency. Moreover, it is fun (even joyous) to do together, over the course of year, with people you grow to know well – a perfect antidote to feelings of despair.   

The Carse Wetland, where the Fellows work and study, is a beautiful place to be on a Friday afternoon. Because our lab in the fall is held Fridays 12-4, we all end our week in Carse and experience the seasonal change together. When we first arrive in late August, the place is buzzing with insects and blooming plants in the fallow fields. There are lots of songbirds and butterflies too. Plus, leaves on the trees, making them easy to identify. Students learn the ecology of Carse and make restoration plans during this season, and then experience the landscape as it enters dormancy, without leaves and with few songbirds. When we return to Carse in April to execute our restoration plans, species we’ve never seen are blooming, including ephemeral woodland flowers. Students sample edible species like wild onion (ramps) and hear the chorus of frogs for the first time. Carse is a very special part of REC. So special that students go back on their own, take their friends there, and family members too. In their writing assignments, they express topophilia – a love of place and setting – that initially surprised us as instructors. But after two years experiencing it ourselves, we understand why.

 A few weeks ago, the Fellows visited a farmer who for thirty years has worked with restoration experts to protect his land along the Lamoille River. He showed us the outcomes of these experiments. Some worked and some failed. The most important point he made was that there are no fail-proof answers, that we must each get to intimately know our place, and then make the best stewardship choices possible with the knowledge available. These are the kinds of important insights we all learn when we visit with someone at their place of work and listen attentively. However, because our Fellows design and complete their own restoration projects in a natural area, they take an insight like this and put it into practice. The learning moves from the conceptual to the messy and uncertain space of the application. When our Fellows meet this farmer again, they will be able to sharestories of ecological restoration, and join in a sort of larger fellowship with people across the state who are working collaboratively in environmental stewardship. Why now? Our students crave relationship to people and to place. REC provides this, along with exposure to the art and science of restoration.  We are delighted to see how our Fellows are fanning out across the state and the country, taking the next steps in conservation, restoration, research and regenerative agriculture. We look forward to the body of good work they create.