Sustainability From the Inside Out: A Learning Community Guided by Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
This year-long, interdisciplinary, learning community explored the challenges inherent in pursuing sustainable living in today's world and offered concrete tools to move toward a positive global future. Based on the idea that effective community action stems from careful self-reflection, the program focused on a simultaneous journey inward as well as outward.
Writing skills: short seminar response papers, longer essays, one major research paper with multiple drafts, self and faculty evaluations, weekly "awareness" sheets documenting personal practice
Analytic reading skills: seminar papers, weekly seminar discussions
Critical thinking skills: essays, seminar papers, seminar discussions, journal
Collaboration skills: group projects including service work, meal and retreat planning, weekly study & writing peer groups
In addition, we held regular individual conferences with each student a minimum of three times each quarter.
- Fall syllabus for Sustainability From the Inside Out (KMZ File 102kB Jan6 12)
- Winter Syllabus for Sustainability From the Inside Out (Microsoft Word 98kB Jan6 12)
- Spring Syllabus for Sustainability From the Inside Out (Microsoft Word 54kB Jan6 12)
- Prospectus and research project (Microsoft Word 41kB Mar2 12) Three-quarter long assignment. Fall quarter, students developed a research question and conducted research. Winter quarter they wrote a 20-page research paper and spring quarter they created an applied project to tie it all together.
- Work and Practice Record sheet (Microsoft Word 41kB Mar2 12) A record sheet that students filled out each week to become aware of their work practices as well as their practices in sustainability.
- Stuff assignment (Microsoft Word 24kB Mar2 12) A research assignment designed to help students visualize what happens around the world in order to create a product (and to use the library).
- Sustainable solutions Assignment #1 (Microsoft Word 30kB Mar2 12) Students research specific examples of sustainable solutions in the areas of energy, transportation, food, water, design, education, or any solution to a particular problem. They articulate why the solution is sustainable, how it meets the needs of people or other species, what materials and skills are used in the solution, as well as some unsustainable aspects of the solution
- Unplug (Microsoft Word 24kB Mar2 12) Students unplug from technology for a week-end
- Seva: Service Description (Microsoft Word 24kB Mar2 12) Description of the service learning component of winter quarter
- Seva: Service Assignment #3 (Microsoft Word 26kB Mar2 12) Students reflect on their service learning, and make explicit links to program materials and activities.
- Yama assignment (Microsoft Word 46kB Mar2 12) A ten-week experiment examining how placing our attention on one the five yamas (non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, right use of sexual energy and non-greediness) might or might not have some effect on our lives. We focused on one yama every two weeks.
- Jigsaw (Microsoft Word 41kB Mar2 12) Each student is dependent on three or four others in a peer learning group for success in learning the assigned material in a text. Each student is accountable for teaching one section of the text to the others and for learning the rest of the text from the others.
References and Notes:
Anderson, E.N. (1996). Ecologies of the Heart: Emotion, Belief and the Environment. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0195090109
Durning, Alan and Ryan, John C. (1997). Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things (New Report, No 4). Northwest Environment. ISBN: 13 9781886093041
Gandhi, Mahatma. (1993). Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Beacon Press. ISBN: 13 780143330097
Gardner, Howard. (2006). Multiple intelligences. Basic Books. ISBN: 13 9780465047680
Glenndinning, Chellis. (1994). My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. Shambhala. ISBN: 978-1897408056
Hartranft, Chip. (2003). The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali. Shambhala. ISBN: 13 9781590300237
Kerouac, Jack. (2006). The Dharma Bums. Penguin Classics. ISBN: 978-0143039600
Loy, David R. (2008). Money Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution. Wisdom Publications. ISBN: 978-0861715589
McKibben, Bill. (2008). Deep Economy. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN: 978-0805087222
McKibben, Bill. (2011). Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN: 978-0312541194
Moore, Kathleen Dean and Nelson, Michael P., eds. (2011). Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril Trinity University Press. ISBN: 978-1595340856
Muller, Wayne. (2000). Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives. Bantam. ISBN: 978-0553380118
Pollan, Michael. (2007). The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin. ISBN: 978-0143038580
Quinn, Daniel. (1995). Ishmael.Bantam/Turner Book. ISBN: 978-0553375404
Robin, Vicki, Dominguez Joe, and Tilford, Monique. (1992). Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence. Penguin (Non-Classics). ISBN: 978-0143115762
Schor, Juliet B. and Taylor, Betsy (eds.). (2003). Sustainable Planet. Beacon Press. ISBN: 978-0807004555
Shell, Ellen Ruppel. (2009). Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. Penguin Press HC. ISBN: 978-1594202155
Small, Gary and Vorgan, Gigi. (2009). iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. Collins Living. ISBN: 978-0061340345
Stone, Michael. (2009). Yoga for a World Out of Balance. Shambhala. ISBN: 978-1590307052
Strasser Susan. (2000). Waste and Want. Henry Holt and Co. ISBN: 978-0805065121
Swami Prabhavananda and Isherwood, Christopher. (2002). Bhagavad-Gita. Signet Classics. ISBN: 978-0451528445
Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. (2007). The Old Way. (Picador). ISBN: 978-0312427283
Thubten, Anam. (2009). No Self No Problem. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN: 978-1559393263
Yes! Magazine. http://www.yesmagazine.org
Zambito, Salvatore. (1992). The Unadorned Thread of Yoga. Yoga-Sutra Institute Press. ISBN: 978-0978767600