Coursework and Community: Nature Writing Class “Plant-walk”
Last semester, students in Lecturer Matt Whitaker’s ENGL 3460: Nature Writing class visited the Stokes Nature Center to participate in a plant-walk. “The plant-walk was part of a subunit in the course called ‘Indigenous Rhetorics,’ which looks at arguments produced by Indigenous/ Native people about human-environment relationships,” Matt says. “In western cultures, plants are basically just background stuff. They're immaterial; if they're noticed at all, it's usually only for their commercial value. In Indigenous cultures, by contrast, they're regarded as members of a community and treated with respect for the services they provide to other organisms and species.”
Mercy Smith participated in the plant-walk last semester and said the collaboration with Stokes was important in a nature-related course: “It can seem a little misconceived to be learning about the natural world purely through classroom instruction. I think this is also a lesson evident in indigenous perspectives on the environment, such as in the Robin Wall Kimmerer writings that we discussed in class. The environment can be hard to care about from afar. It's hard to care about things you can't name, and it's hard to name things that you don't have familiarity with. So, I think any chance to actually go outside and look at the world, through the lens of previous classroom discussions, is quite valuable.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and member of the Potawatomi tribe, argues that humans being unable to live sustainability on Earth is because of assumptions we make about other species, particularly plants. So, she believes humans need to reframe their thinking about plants in order to have a healthier environmental relationship. One of her essays poses the question, “How can we care about something we can’t even name?”
“That's our entry point into this broader conversation about the powers of identification and what it means to be able to call a plant by its proper name (rather than just saying, ‘that's a tree or bush’). Part of the goal of the plant-walk, then, is to increase students' ecological literacy. I want them to be able to identify some of the species that live in Cache Valley, so that hopefully, as a result, they feel more connected to those species and more emplaced in their home environment,” Matt reflects.
USU’s sustainability intern, Jack Greene, is always invited to join Matt’s class and help students shift from viewing plants from a western perspective to appreciating them as Indigenous cultures do. Matt comments, “He isn't Indigenous, but he's very knowledgeable about ecosystems, and he has a lot of experience teaching ethnobotany, which is the study of how different human cultures use plants. So, Jack can tell you not only what you're seeing on a hike, he can also tell you the role of that species in Indigenous life: how it's used, why it's valued, how it fits into the religious narratives of different tribes, etc. And that perspective is really helpful in trying to ‘uproot’ western interpretations of the natural world as something to be conquered, exploited for profit, or simply passed over without notice.”
Mercy said her viewpoint surrounding plants changed through the plant-walk at Stokes. “It gave me a better appreciation for the diversity of life that exists even in an arid place at Cache Valley,” she says. “Once you learn how to recognize individual species, suddenly you begin to notice subtleties, and you can better see the true vibrancy and diversity of a landscape. The indigenous viewpoint of other living things being our relatives is something that really resonates with me, and I think the plant-walk was a great opportunity to see that idea in practice.”
Matt noted working with Stokes has been a valuable experience for both him and his students: “I plan to move forward with the collaboration. It’s a great way to get students outside and get them thinking about the rich interconnections between language, ecology, and culture.”