'Focus the Nation' encourages environmental discussion
By: Jessica Adams
Issue date: 2/1/08 Section: News
Students, teachers, community leaders and citizens have joined forces to discuss the nature of the environment in America's largest teach-in: Focus the Nation.
DePauw is one of over 1,000 colleges taking part in the 5-day event with a simple goal in mind : to raise awareness. This goal is being accomplished through a series of lectures, discussions and movies focused on the environment. The teach-in is a series of academic discussions designed to encourage casual discourse in and out of the classroom.
Movies promoting environmental awareness and the impact humans have on their surroundings were screened earlier this week. On Wednesday, Watson Forum planned to host a live, interactive, national Web cast to involve students in the discourse and understanding of global warming and relationship with the environment, but technological problems prevented the Web cast from taking place.
Thursday was the culmination of the week's events for Focus the Nation. From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., professors and directors spoke about the environment in the Watson Forum, as well as in Reese Hall.
Professor Anne Harris connected the environment to art and history. She said Hildegard, a 12th century artist, saw the human body as a subject of the universe. Through paintings of the universe and the people who inhabit it, Hildegard was able to draw connections between the four humors and temperaments of human beings and the four seasons of the environment.
"How we think of the self is how we think of the world," Harris said. "The self is accountable to the environment in multiple layers."
The environment, she said, is equally as accountable to us.
Professor Harry Brown said the theme of relationships between the environment and humans was also present in colonial American thought.
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, he said, both viewed America as a resourceful land. Jefferson, however, feared that speedy growth could be harmful on American inhabitants. Brown related Jefferson's fears to the current discussions on our relationship with the environment.
DePauw is one of over 1,000 colleges taking part in the 5-day event with a simple goal in mind : to raise awareness. This goal is being accomplished through a series of lectures, discussions and movies focused on the environment. The teach-in is a series of academic discussions designed to encourage casual discourse in and out of the classroom.
Movies promoting environmental awareness and the impact humans have on their surroundings were screened earlier this week. On Wednesday, Watson Forum planned to host a live, interactive, national Web cast to involve students in the discourse and understanding of global warming and relationship with the environment, but technological problems prevented the Web cast from taking place.
Thursday was the culmination of the week's events for Focus the Nation. From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., professors and directors spoke about the environment in the Watson Forum, as well as in Reese Hall.
Professor Anne Harris connected the environment to art and history. She said Hildegard, a 12th century artist, saw the human body as a subject of the universe. Through paintings of the universe and the people who inhabit it, Hildegard was able to draw connections between the four humors and temperaments of human beings and the four seasons of the environment.
"How we think of the self is how we think of the world," Harris said. "The self is accountable to the environment in multiple layers."
The environment, she said, is equally as accountable to us.
Professor Harry Brown said the theme of relationships between the environment and humans was also present in colonial American thought.
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, he said, both viewed America as a resourceful land. Jefferson, however, feared that speedy growth could be harmful on American inhabitants. Brown related Jefferson's fears to the current discussions on our relationship with the environment.
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