What can it mean to be part of a global regenerative agricultural movement connecting care for the earth, care for all people, and care for community? From the PNW origin of "fair exchange" craft chocolate to The Cross-Atlantic Chocolate Collective’s Chocolate Rebellion, from farm practicum to cultural studies, this program invites students to engage with the biocultural diversity of the Caribbean both at home and while earning an International Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) during a three-week study abroad in Jamaica.
One Regeneration will host our three-weeks in Jamaica, which will integrate a focus on the political ecology of cocoa with the standard 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate format specified by the Permaculture Institute of Australia. In preparation students will engage in an introduction to Caribbean culture and history module with Dr. Dexter Gordon, weekly farm practicum, food and agriculture related community-based learning activities, campus sustainability lecture series, and an individual learning project with a field study component to be completed in Jamaica.
One Regeneration identifies its approach this way: “As humans, we have the blessing and power to design our lives in ways that harmonize with the broader Life forces of which we are a part. Living regeneratively involves the decision to be in improved relationship with the life forms and life forces that makes this planet thrive.” Our attention to food in relation to colonization, diaspora, glocalization, and local tradition will provide a regenerative source of opportunities for sensory based learning. From this focus on eating as an agricultural act, including Caribbean food stories and tastes unique to Jamaica, students will create their own stories of how we are what we eat ... as well as what our food eats. Students will be supported to document their learning using cell phone-based digital technologies and to reflect on and curate their learning using WordPress website ePortfolios.
Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:4 – Introduction to Caribbean Culture and History
6 – Tropical and Temperate Permaculture
3 - Cocoa: Political Ecology of Food
3 - Individual Project: TBD
