Full Course Description

This course will focus on the land, people, and history of one of the most diverse and spectacular regions of the world – the American southwest. During the first week, students will prepare for a trip to the southwest by reading and discussing several southwestern writers, including Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, and such Native Americans as Sherman Alexie and Joy Harjo. At the center of their study will be the essential relationship of human being to natural environment and how the extreme landscape and arid climate of the southwest dramatizes this relationship. Because the trip to the southwest will also include a great deal of physical activity (skiing, hiking, and mountain biking), during the first week, students will also undertake a rigorous fitness regimen, biking and hiking the trails of Long Island’s east end.
During the second and third weeks, students will take a ten-day trip to Utah and southwestern Colorado, where they will explore the southwestern landscape, skiing in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and hiking and biking through the high deserts of southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. Guided by park rangers, students will hike through Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, exploring mile-deep canyons and naturally occurring red rock arches that have been formed over millions of years. Local tour guides will also lead students on mountain biking expeditions to a series of Native American “rock art” sites. Finally, students will visit the archeological sites of the Ancestral Pueblan people in Mesa Verde National Park and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. In a medium of their choosing (such as video, photography, or creative writing), each student will document her/his experience, responding to the central question, “How does natural environment affect people and societies?”

The trip includes 4 days of skiing and a professionally guided mountain biking tour in Moab, UT. This is a physically demanding course. Students must be prepared for rigorous outdoor exercise in all kinds of winter weather.