ILC

Name	Class Standing	Term
Meghan M. O’Kelley	SO	Winter 2017
Program Title	Project Title	Mode
Student-Originated Studies: Commodification Processes and Alternatives	Herbal Healing in the Pacific Northwest: A History and Future	Undergraduate In Program Individual Learning Contract
Credits	Sponsor Name
16	Sarah Williams

 

Description

The student will explore and learn the history of herbal medicine in the Pacific Northwest region through interviews, reading, and field exploration of local forests aided by plant identification books in order to develop an understanding of how native plants can be used for healing. The student will also research, form a definition of, and develop a practice of conscious eating. The student will write weekly entries on the class’s wordpress site summarizing their work in addition to creating and online taxonomy of the medicinal uses for native plants and information on how different remedies may be put together.

 

Learning Objectives	Activities that will help me to attain this objective	What my sponsor will evaluate
To attend classes each Tuesday and engage in food tastings, presentations of work, readings, and seminar.	Seminar, assigned text reading, food tastings, PowerPoint presentations, and writing assignments.	Weekly seminar responses and class attendance.
To learn the history of natural medicine in the Pacific Northwest region, through the books Northwest Foraging by Doug Benoliel, and Medicinal Herbalism by David Hoffman. What plants are native to this region? How did and do the people in this region interact with local plants to heal and develop medical practice?	Interviews with local herbalists, reading primary sources on indigenous medicine, and exploring the forests around Evergreen and foraging for native plants.	Weekly summaries of work and discovery on the class’s WordPress site in a blog entry of 250-500 words.
To facilitate and work towards the rehabilitation of Evergreen’s herb garden on the Organic Farm, facilitated by the book Spirit of the Elizabethan Garden by Elisabeth Woodhouse. How can the herb garden be rehabilitated? How can soil be enriched? How can traditional Elizabethan herb garden practices be adapted to include indigenous plant species and meet the needs of the Evergreen community?	Studying Elizabethan herb garden history, consulting workers and managers on the Organic Farm, and physical labor to rehabilitate and prepare the garden for planting in the spring.	Weekly summaries of work and discovery on the class’s WordPress site in a blog entry of 250-500 words.
To construct herbal remedies and tinctures based on accumulated knowledge of herbalism and naturopathy through reading and experience, based on Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon and Making Plant Medicine by Richo Cech. How can herbs and natural medicine be used to heal physical and psychological ailments and unite communities?	Creating teas, lotions, tinctures, and tisanes for healing, and creating an online resource of information on native plants and their uses.	Weekly summaries of work and discovery on the class’s WordPress site in a blog entry of 250-500 words.
To discover, evaluate, and compile texts referenced in Kyla Wazana Tompkins’s Racial Indigestion using my status as a program aide to provide a reference library for other students in my program.	Reading and listing texts, retrieving texts in TESC’s library to be put on reserve for our course, and compiling and posting to our class website texts that can be found online.	The library of texts accumulated as we read Tompkins’s book.

To research, define, and develop a practice of conscious eating.

Through examination of daily routines, reading The Gastronomica Reader, and watching documentaries (including Chef’s Table).

Weekly program updates.

 

Evaluation of Work

• Narrative evaluation from sponsor
• Narrative self-evaluation from student
• The student will complete all assignments as described on the syllabus, including weekly documentation on the Project pages of the SOS program website.  Whenever possible, the student will provide the faculty with a field supervisor, subcontractor, or mentor’s descriptive assessment of in-program ILC work completed with their guidance, expertise, or supervision by week 10. The student will complete comprehensive mid-quarter and final narrative self-evaluations and submit them to faculty prior to mid-quarter and final end of quarter student-faculty conferences.  For the final blog post on Project websites, each student will post, and when possible present in class on Tuesday of week 10, a 10-minute PowerPoint Presentation of 10-15 slides with text that demonstrates the highlights of the student’s in-program ILC Project website.

 

Faculty Support

The student will attend weekly class meetings on Tuesdays and update the class on their work every other week with a powerpoint of knowledge accumulated. The student will also communicate with their professor(s) by email if additional support is needed. Weekly blog updates may be evaluated by the professor to determine if work is satisfactory.

 

Related Experience

I have no previous formal experience with herbalism and naturopathy.

 

Terms and Conditions