Program Links - 1 1901
Contact Us
Phone:
802.258.3212
Toll Free Within the US: 888.272.7881
TTY:
802.258.3388
Fax:
802.258.3296
Kipling Road, P.O. Box 676,
Brattleboro, Vermont USA 05302-0676
Contact Us
Phone:
888.272.7881 (toll-free in US)
802.258.3212
TTY:
802.258.3388
Fax:
802.258.3296
PO Box 676, 1 Kipling Road
Brattleboro, VT 05302 USA
Contact us by email.
Australia: Sustainability and the Environment
Program Highlights
The Australia: Sustainability and the Environment program encourages students to think differently about environmental issues and worldview, explore new ideas and techniques and examine the ways in which sustainable movements are successful or not.
This program seeks to overcome the feelings of despondency and helplessness that many young people experience in the face of what they perceive as massive environmental problems facing the world.
The program seeks to empower and motivate students and provide them with a sense of optimism by demonstrating how each of them can make their own contributions to solving environmental problems.
Byron Bay
While not traveling or in their homestays, students stay in apartments in this small coastal town of 10,000 people. Byron Bay is the most easterly point of Australia and is situated on one of the country's most picturesque beaches. Byron Bay is renowned for ongoing disputes over residential and tourist development. During the time here, students participate in a number of workshops. They also go on a series of one-day field trips around the local area which expose students to some of the innovative ways that people in the region are moving towards sustainable living.
Environmental Philosophy Workshop
The quiet eucalypt forest around the Forest Meditation Centre just north of Lismore is an ideal venue for the two-day workshop in environmental philosophy. Dr. Eshana Bragg, an environmental psychologist, familiarizes students with a range of philosophical perspectives on the natural environment, from economic rationalism, to deep ecology and ecofeminism. This enables students to begin to pinpoint and develop an understanding of their own individual environmental philosophy and to appreciate the need to understand the environmental philosophies of others.
Aboriginal World View Workshop
Mary Graham, a Bundjalung woman, who was a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, leads a two-day workshop on Aboriginal worldview. This workshop introduces the students to the diversity of Aboriginal cultures in Australia and emphasizes how their world-views differ from our own.
Sustainable Futures Workshop
Peter Cuming, a leading planner in New South Wales, conducts a two-day workshop on environmental planning and design for sustainability. He also presents a range of practical measures that students can personally take to promote sustainability, and he instills in students a sense of excitement at the opportunities that exist to promote sustainability in all walks of life.
"Before this semester I lived the way I had been taught to live by my culture and had the feeling that I really couldn't change anything. After being in Australia the last three months, I am beginning to have a whole new outlook and realize that changing the way we live is feasible." --Australia program alumnaRead more from an alumna of this program