The intent of the “Sound Learning Communities” project is to provide many more undergraduates with the knowledge, civic understanding, skills, and motivation with which to understand the threats to the Puget Sound ecosystem and both large-scale strategies and individual behavior-change required for restoring its health.

Begun in the summer of 2009, the project’s strategy is to engage as many as 100 college and university faculty members and regional resource experts as a community of learners in an exploration of Puget Sound’s ecosystems and human history, the current threats to its health, research on both the nature of the problems and the promise of solutions, policy alternatives, restoration initiatives, and the current state of education and communications regarding Sound restoration. 

In 2009, the Curriculum for the Bioregion initiative held its first two week-long field courses focusing on King County/Elliott Bay/the Duwamish Watershed, and on Pierce County/Commencement Bay/the Puyallup Watershed.  In August 2012, we held a course focusing on northern Puget Sound and the Skagit Watershed.  In June 2013, we held a course for faculty members in the South Sound, with a focus on the Deschutes and Nisqually Watersheds.

2009 Puget Sound Summer Field Course- Seattle Syllabus
2009 Puget Sound Summer Field Course-Tacoma Syllabus
2012 Puget Sound Summer Field Course- Salish Sea Syllabus
2013 South Sound Summer Course Syllabus

Curriculum for the Bioregion is an initiative whose goal is preparing learners for citizenship in a world where the complex issues of sustainability—environmental quality, true community health and wellbeing, and social equity and justice—are paramount.  We engage faculty communities in exploring these issues and in building sustainability concepts and place-based learning into a broad array of courses and disciplines. See http://bioregion.evergree.edu