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2019 Valley & Ridge Participant- Dr. Monica Rico

Dr. Monica Rico, History and Environmental Studies, Lawrence University

The Practice of Community in Appleton
 

This course will explore concepts of community through readings, field trips, and a project for a local organization. The project will change every time the course is offered, but will build on existing relationships with the City of Appleton, the Fox Cities Environmental Learning Campus, Fox Cities Greenways, and the Northeastern Wisconsin Land Trust. Students will consider the "three legs" of sustainability as a lens for understanding the region's economic and social changes, and will reflect on their own understanding of sustainability and belonging.    

The readings and discussions at Valley and Ridge provided me with resources for theorizing a richer pedagogy of place as well as a more rigorous framework for talking about social and cultural sustainability. I plan to use the Sustainability Development Goals exercise with the images not only in my class, but also in a faculty seminar on sustainability that I will be leading this fall.    

I attended the workshop with two colleagues, one from my own institution and one from nearby Ripon College. We all agreed that it was valuable to have dedicated space and time for conversations about future collaborations between our two institutions. One immediate outcome of the conference is that Lawrence students in History 202: Introduction to Public History, taught by Monica Rico, will be taking a field trip this fall to Ripon to view and discuss “The Lands We Share”, an exhibit about rural life in Wisconsin that will be installed at Ripon between October and December.