The “Discovering a Sense of Place ” course is a nine-session course focusing on knowing about and protecting the place where we live.
The Discovering a Sense of Place discussion course is meant to help participants understand the meaning of a bio-regional perspective, what it would mean to develop one, consider the benefits of consciously developing an intimate relationship with your place, and explore what it might mean to protect the place where you live.
Session themes include:
- A Sense of Place: Wendell Berry, America's best-known bio-regionalist, says if you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are. With a sense of place, your identity is defined—to a significant extent—by the natural features of the place where you live. Without a sense of place, what will fill the void?
- Responsibility to Place: There is a difference between living on the land and dwelling in it—understanding its rhythms, its potential, and its limits. Those who develop intimacy with a place over time tend to accept responsibility for it.
- Knowing Your Bioregion: Dane County is a unique place with its own watershed, soils, climate, plants, animals, and history. How much do you know about it? This session includes a local supplement with information about specific Dane County information and writings by local authors.
- Living in Place: Living in place means consciously trying to satisfy your needs and find your pleasures in your local bioregion and working to assure the long-term health of the bioregion.
- Mapping Your Place: Mapping can be learned by local groups and individuals to give them a new sense of place. Whereas a typical map shows political subdivisions and transportation routes, a bio-regionalist's map delineates regions based on watersheds, climate, and plant types, thereby helping people relate to their natural surroundings.
- Building Local Community: A bio-regionalist assumes responsibility for the health and continuity of a place, not only its natural features, but also the social bonds of its people.
- Empowerment: Knowing a place can inspire and empower one to take action to preserve it or take part in its restoration. How important is individual and group action in modern society?