Southern Illinois University Carbondale
ER-12: Sustainability Immersive Experience

- Primitive Skills Program- This is a new initiative for Touch of Nature this Fall. We will be developing programs that connect the land user to the most basic survival needs. These programs would include bow making, survival techniques, flint knapping, hide tanning, rock climbing, tree climbing, team building, etc. - Eco Camps- Every June at Touch of Nature the Environmental Education program runs four weeks of Eco-Camps with four different themes. This past year we ran Animal Adventures, Survival 101, Wonderful Water, and Planet Earth. Every week we integrate information on issues pertaining to the theme of that week with the immersion of these students into the land. The center has both forest and a lake for us to explore and teach, relating the concepts addressing sustainability of plants, animals, and humans alike. Issues including but not limited to water issues, watersheds, human consumption, erosion, pollution, conservation, extinction, behavior modification, self-expression of and awareness education of issues, forest management, invasive species, population, and human impact are addressed. Environmental Education- The environmental education program at SIU’s Touch of Nature runs programs geared toward the education of university and private organizations and the public in how planetary systems function and our changing human relationship to these systems by immersing people into the land to see and understand them firsthand. Considering how we have interacted as a part of the system in the past and how we are presently engaged provides us a basis for considering the future and our crucial role in the sustainability of all species. We employ whatever works to help get this idea across. In addition to hands on activities in the landscape we utilize literature, self-expression, ancestral skills, observation, and other techniques in the execution of our work. Hiking and paddling on the land and on the water to observe systems at work and the human intervention/management of these systems happens both on site and at locations further afield.