Welcome to Rural Arts in Science & Sustainability Education (RAiSE ecology)

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Skill-up for system change!

Attune in nature within natural surroundings. 

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Hands-on practical in-person tuition at 10-day residential followed by flexible virtual learning to develop your community project.​​

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Develop Arts and Science skills while learning how to restore ecosystems. ​​

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Certificate in Applied Ecology.

 

Digitally Badged Course. 

 

What is RAiSE ecology:

By reconnecting Art and Science, and applying them to ecological sustainability and ecosystem restoration, Rural Arts In Science and Sustainability Education (RAiSE ecology) focuses on providing innovative and practical education for genuine sustainable development to meet the three existential challenges of biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, and de-linking from fossil fuels. Because the nature of environment, ecology, and sustainability cut across traditional subject disciplines as well as national boundaries, tackling the environmental crises from a transdisciplinary integration of subject perspectives is a systemic approach that fosters community pathways to meet the 17 SDG's. 

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The RAiSE ecology field studies venue:

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10-day residential field studies module in rural France followed by online tutorials while you develop your community project.

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The international transdisciplinary RAiSE ecology course starts with a 10-day residential field studies module at a rural venue near Poitiers in France. The residential field studies module takes place at the RAiSE-ecology farm; an old Napoleonic farm that sits on the boundary between two agricultural paradigms: industrial monoculture on one side and sustainable permaculture, polyculture and agro-forestry on the other. 

 

The RAiSE ecology course: 

The RAiSE ecology course has two phases; firstly a 10-day residential field studies phase, which is followed by a 9-month post-residential phase in which there are weekly tutorials on a range of artistic and scientific topics; while you develop, instigate and document your community project.

 

The 10-day residential field studies phase is run through innovative, imaginative, and creatively facilitated field studies workshops, tutored sessions and discussions, both scientific and artistic, that take you on a journey through different perspectives, each enabling a different enquiry into the nature of place. The field studies residential takes you on a journey that will transform your understanding and deepen your appreciation of nature, and your place within it.

 

The post-residential phase of weekly online tutorials provides a virtual learning environment (VLE) on a range of artistic and scientific topics that support your project development and provide a philosophical underpinning by which communities can attune within nature and appreciate a deeper understanding of ecological patterns and processes. Each tutorial involves a check-in on project development, helping you to develop something in your own community, which will help towards achieving the 17 SDG's of the United Nations. 

 

Attending the RAiSE ecology course will help you to be able to apply ecological principles to build and grow pioneering prototypes of genuinely sustainable and ecological restorative solutions that apply to both rural and urban environments. We explore what ecological sustainability and restoration looks, feels, and tastes like, as well as how genuine sustainability can be understood in terms of ecological and economic processes. Completing the course will give you a RAiSE-ecology Certificate in Applied Ecology, as well as a RAiSE-ecology Digital Badge.  

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Residential Field Studies Curriculum overview:

Since art and science share observation as their root, the residential starts with observation of nature, of biodiversity in fields, forests, springs and streams, and takes you on an experiential, practical, hands-on curriculum along twin tracks that explore both scientific and artistic ways to respond to being a human being, at this point in history, on this beautiful planet. 

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Day 0: Bus, arrival - settle in, introductions, orientation. 

Day 1: Farmers market, ethical consumption, history, ecosophy 

Day 2: Field nature - observations

Day 3: Field nature - forest ecology

Day 4: Field nature - biodiversity measurement

Day 5: Permaculture / Zones 4,3,2 / rewilding & restoration

Day 6: Habitat (Zone 1)

Day 7: Habitat (sustainable architecture)

Day 8: Mini project

Day 9: Mini project  - presentations - party

Day 10: Departures - bus & lifts to Poitiers

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RAiSE ecology topics:

We start in nature with evolution, ecology and biodiversity, leading to ecological pattern and process, sustainable agriculture and permaculture, progressing to sustainable habitat and architecture. Along the way, you will learn about applying insights from fungal mycelia, including mycosophy and ecosophy, the development of ecological systems, fabrics and textiles, building materials, biological, carbon-neutral, and renewable energy systems, using waste as a resource, rainwater harvest to wood-fired pottery. The residential start of the course will bring you together with international interdisciplinary minds from across the sciences and arts, to create the community that will continue for a further 9 months with an online VLE curriculum together with tutorials focusing on interrelated themes that will help to guide the evolution of your own applied ecology community project in your workplace, school or local ecosystem.

 

RAiSE ecology community projects:

Your final community project will enable you to join a growing network of collaborative startups, ecological, biological and mycological entrepreneurs in mutual support to be empowered to transform your workplace, community, home, garden, farm, whether rural or urban. Documentation of your chosen project completes the program, upon which a hard certificate and digital badge in Applied Ecology are awarded.