Understanding Place: Lake Champlain

Manifesting solutions to environmental challenges requires a deep understanding of "place," by which we mean a sense of the history, culture, economy, and ecology of a location. Facing environmental challenges cannot be divorced from understanding either the people or the ecological realities of the location where the challenge is situated or from where the solution is to emerge. This is true everywhere, but it is best learned through a focus on a single place. For this year, our place of study is Lake Champlain and its associated watershed. Lake Champlain is a large (440 square mile) freshwater lake that borders Vermont, New York, and Quebec. Like virtually all lakes in the world, it is confronted by a range of pressing environmental challenges such as declining water quality from land-use practices in the watershed, invasive species, and competing demands for uses, sustainable management of recreational fisheries. As such, it provides a lens with which to explore the ways in which the integration of many different disciplines—ranging across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities—can lead to a better understanding of the solutions to multiple environmental challenges. Through an exploration of both cultural and ecological narratives, we will come to understand how the lake came to be in the condition it is today and how to improve conditions for both its own waters and the human communities associated with it. This course will use the R/V David Folger (the College’s research vessel), GIS technology, and interviews with numerous people involved in the management of the lake and occupancy of the watershed in both the U.S. and Canada.

Required Text:

Winslow, Mike. Lake Champlain: A Natural History, Lake Champlain Committee, 2008.