VIS/Ladakh course descriptions at midterm, Spring 2009

VIS 2009 course descriptions at midterm, 2009


Environmental Science (Amy Higgins)
Work this term: This class focuses on three main topics: Ecosystems, Climate Change, and Sustainability. Upon arriving in Ladakh we began a unit on Landscape, drawing heavily on Janet Rizvi's "Portrait of a Landscape," from her book Ladakh: Crossroads of High Asia. In addition to class discussions on ecosystems and Ladakh's landscape, we drew our own ecosystems in Vermont, and then compared them with Ladakhi thankas, traditional Ladakhi art. Our next unit focused on Ladakh's Flora & Fauna, and Tsering Kunzes, a SECMOL teacher and guide, led a nature hike where we learned to identify Ladakh's most common trees and plants, and a few animals. We were lucky enough to have a herd of ibex lingering around campus, and we tentatively identified some snow leopard tracks on a field trip high up in the mountains. Each student did a presentation on a Ladakhi bird or mammal in class.

Agriculture, our next unit, focused on types of soils and soil horizons, and a guest from the Department of Defense High Altitude Research Lab spoke on the difficulties of farming in Ladakh, and about advances in technology, particularly greenhouses, in this cold climate. We also studied greenhouse design, and Angus, with his background in architecture, assisted in drafting greenhouse plans. We broke ground on the greenhouse, spending long mornings leveling the sandy soil; we are now constructing the walls using primarily mud bricks. Eager to start growing some Vermont vegetables, Jessika and Shona planted some of their seeds in one of SECMOL's greenhouses. Everyone is curious to see whether the watermelon will in fact grow in Ladakh! Ecological Footprints, the last unit in the Ecosystems section, focused on resource scarcity and contrasted India and the United States. Students worked with a partner to complete two Ecological Footprint Calculations, one for their life in Vermont, and one for their new life in Ladakh and then graphed them for comparison. Students found that their lifestyles in Vermont were more ecologically expensive than in Ladakh, yet still fell far below the U.S. average (go Vermont!). A guest speaker from a nomadic family came to speak about nomadic life, living in yak skin tents, travelling with the herds, and how his family traditionally moved across the Tibetan border with ease but is now increasingly confined to a small section of Ladakh's mountains.

Climate Change, our next topic, began with a unit on Weather and Climate. VIS students read about climate change in many different sources, from textbooks to Time magazine to excerpts from James Gustave Speth's Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability and from Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. Discussions focused on greenhouse gases and sources of emission, as well as proposed solutions, such as carbon sequestration.

Glaciers & Ladakh focused on the relationship between glaciers and global warming and the decoupling of glacial meltwater cycles from traditional agricultural practices. Following a class on glaciology, we travelled to the village of Igoo with a guest speaker to see the artificial glacier constructed high in this mountain town, at about 14,000 feet, which provides water to farming families miles below. A particularly fun fieldtrip, SECMOL students came along and brought ice-skates in order to skate on the frozen reservoir at 14,000 feet. VISpas and SECMOL students raced each other to slide down the glacier, and notebooks got wet as many snowballs were thrown. In the untouched powder sitting on the ice our guest speaker identified tracks as that of a snow leopard, walking leisurely over the ice.

Sustainability, our final topic, began with a unit on Appropriate Technology, coinciding with our Sham Trek. Staying with local families, students interviewed Ladakhi villagers about the innovations in their homes, from modern solar panels to ancient water wheels, animal dung stoves made out of recycled oil drums to Ladakhi composting toilets, later using their research on the trek to compose an article on Appropriate Technology in Ladakh in a joint English-Science class assignment. Students also presented their findings in class. A fieldtrip to Ladakh's Ecology Centre was also made during this unit, to learn about development, and a similar trip to the Snow Leopard Conservancy to hear about the predator fencing designed to keep sheep safe from snow leopards, and snow leopards safe from human retribution.

Greenhouse work continues during our upcoming units on Energy, Alternative Fuels, Solar Panels and Solar Heating. Konchok Norgay, SECMOL's Science & Technology director, led the students on a "Solar Tour" of SECMOL to better understand how meals are cooked using minimal gas and mainly the parabolic solar reflectors, how solar heating keeps the dormitories warm at night, and how the solar panels power our ipods and laptops. Norgay will also lecture on photovoltaics and solar cells. Currently, VIS students are hard at work on their research projects, an interdisciplinary exercise. In science they have chosen topics and are carrying out research, and collecting data through surveys and measurements; for English class they are interviewing experts to gain background knowledge and writing a feature article intended for newspaper publication; and in our history/social science course, “Ladakh: Then and Now”, they will be putting together presentations on their findings.

English (James Bridge)
Work this term: We began English class with group readings of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, and “The Man Who Woke Up”, a short essay by Huston Smith introducing Buddhism, during our pre-Ladakh travels. This was particularly fitting during our week at the Songstsen Library studying Tibetan Buddhism. Once in Ladakh and settled at SECMOL, students picked a metaphor describing who they are to use in a three-page essay. Other writing in the first half of the semester has included two pieces of fact journalism: one on appropriate technology in a village while trekking, and one about the Matho Nagrang Buddhist festival. The former was done in conjunction with a science assignment in which students had to identify forms of appropriate technology. For both pieces, students interviewed local participants, and focused on various aspects of the festival, such as the gambling tables it attracts, food sold, the generations present and why they attend, etc. In class we discussed ways to obtain good quotes and how to use them, as well as proper construction of short fact pieces. Students also read and presented various newspaper articles in class, and did a number of free-writes on such topics “SECMOL is a Place Where”, and “Shifts in Perspective”, which was related to a reading of Bill Eddy’s “Kenge and the Buffalo”. Other readings in the first half of the semester have included: “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, “A Vermont Tale” by Mark Helperin, Lawrence Durrell’s “Landscape and Character”, “The Prophet’s Hair” by Salman Rushdie, and an excerpt from The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac about hiking up a mountain, read aloud during rest breaks on a hike up SECMOL mountain. Students are now reading Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French. The final project for English will be a 1,000-word feature article on a topic related to final projects in science and LTN.

History/Social Science (Ladakh: Then and Now -- LTN) (James Bridge and Amy Higgins)
Work this term: The work for this course began in our first week at the Songtsen Library outside of Dehradun in the state of Uttarkhand. Students attended courses each day in Buddhist studies and Bodyik script, used in both Tibetan and Ladakhi languages, and spent time on the campus collecting information about various aspects of Buddhism. They were required to give presentations on group topics at the end of our week there, which was attended by our teachers and the Director of the campus. This provided a nice introduction to our time in Ladakh, and was a good geographical transition as well.

In Ladakh, we began hearing from our full roster of guest speakers, on myriad topics: politics in the state of Jammu and Kashmir; agriculture in Ladakh; tourism; marriage traditions; the education system; Ladakhi history; the Dards of western Ladakh; and nomadic life. Students were required to write reflections on each speaker. We also went on field trips to a variety of places: the artificial glacier; the Tibetan refugee community; two Buddhist festivals; and various NGOs in the town of Leh. Students wrote reflections on these field trips as well. Students also chose an aspect of Ladakh to introduce during class; topics included military presence, environmental issues, education, agriculture, and traditional architecture. These talks were supplemented with the aforementioned speakers and field trips, as well as pertinent readings. Class time has included short units on the Tibetan and Kashmir conflicts with readings from the book Kashmir by Sumantra Bose, and Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French, also discussed in terms of style during English class. Another English-LTN crossover occurred in discussions of news articles. Each student presented an article to the class, referring to its style as well as content. The final project for this course will be a presentation of research findings on a topic relevant to Ladakh. This research was done in conjunction with a final news piece composed for English, and data collected for science. Holly Borday, the VIS intern from UVM, taught a unit on Buddhist ecology over four class periods, focusing on concepts of Buddhism and their relationships to wide scale environmental issues. Each student prepared a step-by-step approach to solving an environmental problem using Buddhist philosophy.
Advanced Research and Independent Study: The VIS Exhibition (James Bridge, Amy Higgins, local mentors)
Work this term: A daily exhibition class was not held during February and March. Instead, more time in these months was allotted to English, History and Science classes so that their work could be completed by early April. The remainder of the semester will be devoted almost entirely to exhibition research, fieldwork, writing, and the development of projects and final presentations scheduled for the end of April/early May. This approach allows for more intensive study and project focus in our three main academic classes, while providing a more gradual introduction to the potential areas of interest and applied research for Exhibition. Students have by now developed their research proposals, research questions, outlines and other relevant issues. To transition from the more abstract topical exploration into the experience driven field studies, each student, with the help of their mentor and VIS teacher/guide Tashi Wangchuk, has developed a plan for intensive, immersion style field research, each in a distinct community site in and around the Leh Valley. The final academic report will contain a full description of work done by each student in the Exhibition/Independent Study course in addition to final work done in the other three full academic courses.

Ladakhi Language (Tsering Kunzes, SECMOL staff and Becky Norman)
Work this term: The successful completion of the foreign language credit in the VIS Ladakh program is primarily the result of the depth of students’ cultural immersion combined with their own level of motivation and discipline, and attendance at daily classes taught primarily by SECMOL teacher Tsering Kunzes. Students use the Ladakhi language guidebook Getting Started in Ladakh by Rebecca (Becky) Norman, Co-Director of SECMOL Campus. This is by far the most useful phrasebook available and provides a very simple progression into the language as well as a short dictionary. In addition to the daily Ladakhi language class, each student is encouraged to make the most out of his or her conversation sessions with SECMOL students in order to practice weekly vocabulary, and words used for greetings, food preferences, and basic interactions. Many students have also found that weeklong village homestays have provided excellent opportunities to learn the language consistently.

English Conversation (led by Holly Borday)
The English conversation course has given VISpas the opportunity to discuss topics with Ladakhi students that provide for better understanding of the Ladakhi culture. The class has also allowed Ladakhi students to get to know VISpas on a more personal level and talk about things that they are usually too shy to broach otherwise. This class has been a valuable opportunity for the VISpas to help Ladakhis practice English, which is crucial for their studies. So far in the class, students have discussed matters such as etiquette, chores, health and family structure as well as matters relating to VIS classes such as Ladakhi politics, environmental issues and the education system. One week was spent teaching the Ladakhi students an American song as well as successfully learning a traditional Ladakhi song from the Ladakhi students! For each class, VISpas have been pairing up with Ladakhi students in small groups and then gathering into a big circle at the end of the class to participate in a group discussion about what they have learned from each other.