Themes

Earth as literary setting and stage but also as habitat
utopias vs. dystopias
a sense of place
pollution, climate change, the fossil- and post-fossil fuel economies, and other environmental problems and potential catastrophes
mammals, birds, and concepts of the more-than-human world
extirpation and extinction of animal and plant species
notions of wilderness and wilder places
observation and contemplation of nature
nature and silence
ethics, environmental activism, and questions of responsibility to the earth

Poetry

Sarah Orne Jewett, “A White Heron”
Emily Dickinson, "Mother Nature"
John Clare, "The Lament of Swordy Well"
John Keats, "To Autumn"
Rudyard Kipling, "The Glory of the Garden"
William Blake, "The Tyger"
Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish"
Henry David Thoreau, "Pray to What Earth"
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection"
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "What Being in Rank-Old Nature"
Samuel Coleridge, "To Nature"

Short Story

Ernest Hemingway, "Big Two-Hearted River"
Ray Bradbury, The Veldt
Joyce Carol Oates, The Buck
Flannery O'Connor, The Turkey Quammen Walking Out
Kate Chopin, The Storm
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
David Michael Kaplan, Doe Season
Jack London, To Build a Fireplace

Essays

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, “Letters from an American Farmer”
Henry David Thoreau, “Walking," “Wild Apples”
The Manifesto

Editorials

Films

Into the Wild
The Road
Downsizing
Jeremiah Johnson
Princess Mononoke
Erin Brockovich
Gorillas in the Mist
Wall-E

Documentaries

PBS list of 17 documentaries on climate change and sustainability
An Inconvenient Truth
No Impact Man
The 11th Hour
Chasing Ice
The Cove
Tapped
The Vanishing of Bees
The Salt of the Earth
Encounters at the End of the World
The March of the Penguins

Television

6 Nature TV Series that You Need to Watch
Dirty Jobs

Media

Web

ASLE
Ecocriticism, Ecopoetry, Ecofiction
"I Developed" article
Nestlé Offered Permit To Continue Taking Water From California Watershed. If you use the documentary “Untapped,” municipal fights with Nestle is one of the featured issues. It looks like the water rights issues continue.
Starbucks Debuts 3D-Printed Ice Cream Popsicles That Are Vegan & Guilt-Free. DesignTAXI. Starbucks Debuts 3D-Printed Ice Cream Popsicles That Are Vegan & Guilt-Free Read the full story.
The Places We Live (Photodocumentary: Bendiksen's book charts two years of photographing and speaking to the inhabitants of some of the world's most infamous slums)
Crispr Can Speed Up Nature—and Change How We Grow Food
WIRED. It took thousands of years for humans to breed a pea-sized fruit into a beautiful beefsteak tomato. Now, with gene editing, scientists can change everything. Read the full story.
NPR Segment from 1A: "Get Out: Nurturing A Bond Between Black People And Nature" (https://the1a.org/shows/2017-12-18/get-out-nurturing-a-bond-between-black-people-and-nature)

Podcast: Can Biotech Crops Feed the Developing World?

Science of Beer: Tapping the Power of Brewer's Yeast
Synthetic Biology Explained
Why is Olive Oil Awesome
This Game Is Moving People to Take Action Against Climate Change Smithsonian. In the 'World Climate' simulation, people play delegates to UN climate negotiations and work to strike an agreement that meets global climate goals Read the full story
Wendell Berry's "The Pleasure of Eating"
Fourth National Climate Assessment with downloads and powerpoint presentations (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/downloads/).
For conversation starters in class: https://www.livekindly.co/
It’s official: the planet is getting greener
The Times They Are a-Changin'
Listen to How Climate Change Became A Partisan Issue from Fresh Air in Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fresh-air/id214089682?i=1000434453783
What Gets To Be A 'Burger'? States Restrict Labels On Plant-Based Meat
Lawmakers across the U.S. and in the EU argue that labels like "vegan sausage" or "cauliflower rice" mislead people. Tofurky, the ACLU and others are suing, saying new label laws violate free speech.: https://apple.news/AVmuzKrxDTkKt3PBK87_BoA
Why Your Brain Can’t Process Climate Change
In this view from an airplane icebergs float in Disko Bay on August 4, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland. Last week saw the latest in a series of increasingly dire reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This past July was the hottest month on record, punctuated by intense heat waves throughout Europe and the Arctic, leading to a record-breaking 12.5 billion tons of ice melting on Greenland on Aug. 1. Yet despite the bad news rising with the mercury, on the whole the world is. Read in TIME: https://apple.news/AW4N_APA3T-iOrvRJADhKsw
The Anthropocene Is a Joke. On geological timescales, human civilization is an event, not an epoch. Read in The Atlantic: https://apple.news/AL52GP8oXQoa9PkxOYrfFxA
Olafur Eliasson on what art can do to fight climate change
The man who turned nature into an artform looks back on three decades of work — and he has unfinished business with some of it. Read in CNN: https://apple.news/AFfEZwmYiTY2BXP9XQlQYmw
A Rare Look Inside The Doomsday Seed Vault Deep In The Arctic: https://youtu.be/uAl8dSpkNWs
The World Wastes Tons of Food. A Grocery ‘Happy Hour’ Is One Answer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/business/food-waste-climate-change.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&contentCollection=Business
Others may already have seen this, but this documentary really humanizes Kingsnorth and shows some of the joy in his life. I like to teach "Learning What to Make of It," and this is a good accompaniment. Or even for "Planting Trees n the Anthropocene." The battle against climate change by Paul Kingsnorth - Docu

Sample Syllabi and Assignments

Kristen Weinzapfel syllabus
Rochelle Gregory: Composition I and Composition II
Krista Ratcliff interview and promise statement
Ben Chessman's talk with Jacob Arnold class
Kingsnorth discussion questions (chapter-by-chapter)
Very brief summaries of major ideas in the supplemental (Launchpad) readings.
Sample Course Schedule (Kristen Weinzapfel)

Open Educational Resources

English and Writing at Lansing Community College

Library Database Resources

Academic Video Online (Environmental Studies)
Environmental Issues and Policy Collection
GreenFILEGREENR

Lusk Interview at NCTC on March 25, 2019

https://youtu.be/DFGbsm8gOao