IDIS W60 Sustaining Hawaii

How do you feed a million people, not to mention plane loads of tourists, in an archipelago that is 2500 miles from everywhere else?

This course explores how global and local forces have intersected in Hawaii over the past two centuries and how sustainability, preservation, and diversification have become today’s most pressing concerns. Our two-week stay in Hawaii includes trips to sustainable homesteads, farmers’ markets, cultural centers, historic sites, and nature preserves. Learning from Hawaiian films, publications, and leaders in Hawaii’s sustainability movement, students gain insights from ancient Hawaii’s ahupua’a (watershed) system that interconnected nature and societal structures. This system, along with the original Hawaiians’ values and language elements connected to the land, now informs the state’s current efforts to become more self-sufficient. Indeed, by exploring Hawaiian concepts like malama ‘aina (caring for the land), we gain invaluable insights into our own efforts to care for God’s creation. That is why many find this integral cross-cultural engagement (CCE) experience to be invaluable. This course will fulfill the CCE requirement.

Courses

Prerequisites: Living World core course and Societal Structures in North America core.

Cost

3500 (exact)

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