When
Where
This course starts and ends in Missoula, Montana before guiding students up through Glacier National Park via Going to the Sun Road, into Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation, and into the backcountry of the beautiful Bob Marshall Wilderness. Students will get to explore the different micro-climates and cultures that make the Rocky Mountain Front of Western Montana a unique learning environment.
Semester Credits
2 Total Semester Credits
Academic Credit:
All courses offered through the Wild Rockies Field Institute are accredited through the University of Montana. Each Wild Rockies Field Institute course is approved and supported by University of Montana departmental leadership and faculty.
The “Environmental Ethics: Climate Change & Sense of Place” course offers pre-college students 2 pre-college semester credits for successfully completing the program.
Quarter System Students:
For colleges and universities on the quarter system, a 2-credit semester course is typically worth 3 quarter system units.
Block System Students:
At institutions where one course is equal to one credit, each class (e.g. CCS 391) within a WRFI course is typically equal to one credit.
Environmental Ethics: Climate Change & Sense of Place Course Description
This course takes the study of climate change and environmental ethics out of textbooks and into Montana’s Crown of the Continent landscape, situated in the ancestral homeland of the Salish, Ktunaxa, and Blackfeet peoples. As students travel through this unique landscape, they will study the regional effects of global climate change, hear from people working to address climate and environmental justice, and explore how sense of place and environmental ethics inform land management decisions.
While sleeping under the stars, hiking alpine ridges, cooking together, and engaging in daily class discussions, students will form a strong community-style cohort with their fellow students and the instructors. In addition to learning course material, students will learn a variety of backcountry and recreational skills they will carry into the future.
Students will leave with an understanding of the cascading practical and ethical implications of climate change, an awareness of how humans are working to build cultural and ecological resilience in a changing world, and a better sense of their own environmental ethic and sense of place. Upon completion, students will be able to articulate their own sense of responsibility to place and how to apply that to their home environment.
Davidson Honors College Partnership
WRFI’s on-campus partner for the Montana Field Experience is the Davidson Honors College at the University of Montana, affectionately known as “the DHC.” The DHC focuses on curricular and co-curricular experiences, which include small class sizes, personalized experiential learning, interdisciplinary education, and a strong foundation focused on academic, civic, and personal engagement. These aspects make a partnership between WRFI and the DHC a natural fit; as such, students who take courses in the Montana Field Experience are eligible to apply those credits towards their DHC requirements at the discretion of the Director of Student Engagement once they matriculate at University of Montana.
