Customized Experiential Education Programs

Expand your students’ learning with the experience of a lifetime!

Earthaven Ecovillage… where village life and the natural world come together for an educational experience like no other.

Headquartered at Earthaven, SOIL offers customized place-based learning journeys – virtually and in-person. All of our offerings have nature-based and team-building components that inspire creativity and empower authentic leadership with connection to place, others, and self.

Place-based education – be it in the same place as our staff or taking place intimately in your own environment – is a student-centered form of learning that heavily emphasizes inquiry into topics of importance to you and your community.

The community and your own backyard become the classroom with skilled-facilitation from SOIL faculty on how to approach local, regional, and global challenges through an embodied and integrated inquiry-based approach.

All of our faculty will be teaching from their experience of being immersed in a 29-year-old, off-grid community set in the rich biodiversity of Southern Appalachia. Through them and with them, you too can get an up-close look at sustainability through social, ecological, economic, and eco-spiritual lenses.

Our ecovillage is a living laboratory for a whole-life skills curriculum — a place to see regenerative systems in practice, food production in action, and community living on a personal level.

Study away — mini-mesters — field trips — alternative breaks — service-learning projects

Inquire now about how this one-of-a-kind learning opportunity can serve your group.

Keene State students in customized educational program at Earthaven Ecovillage

The visit was a perfect compliment to the goals and objectives of my class – we got to see  intentional living and sustainable practices in the flesh, and learned about some of the guiding ethics and cosmologies that ispire these actions. All of my students responded that the field trip to Earthaven was a highlight of their semester.

Dr. Todd LeVasseur

Director, Sustainability Literacy Institute, College of Charleston

How Does It Work?

SOIL’s custom onsite educational experience for groups consists of expert lectures, fireside conversations, community celebrations, hands-on projects, journaling, tours, and interactive activities to provide an intimate, well-rounded, and powerful learning experience.

SOIL offers your group a custom educational experience that will foster relationship to self, to community, and to the earth. Our programs help you prepare to lead from the heart with the Earth in mind.

SOIL is ready to facilitate the design and implementation of truly transformational and authentic educational experiences. Our team specializes in managing and streamlining program logistics and curriculum to make it easy for your program to unfold with grace and depth.

In addition, SOIL can provide customized online learning experiences for your group. The online components can support your group’s learning journey from your location or augment your onsite educational experience.

Dr. Zach Ruben, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Lander University, Greenwood, SC

We utilize a sophisticated online Learning Management System that allows for the creation of custom courses including multiple sequential lessons, quizzes, evaluations, live interactive components and more.

In addition to developing unique material customized for your group’s needs, we are frequently able to mix in content we have created for other online experiences for even greater value.

 

Participant Video

Produced by Alternative Spring Break 2018 participants.

Wild foods expert Dimitri Magiasis leading an edible plants walk
Group project during a SOIL customized education program