LLED 505: Environmental Literacy
Winter Term 2 from Jan to Apr 2026
Wednesday, 4 to 7 PM
Instructor: Dr. Derek Gladwin
How might we live, learn, and research more ecologically? This course invites researchers, educators, citizens, and leaders to explore literacy and language through an ecological lens—connecting theory, practice, and lived experience. More broadly, it encourages participants to consider what it means to be ecological in everyday practices across disciplines and contexts. Grounded in systems perspectives, complexity, and relational and affective ways of knowing and being, the course challenges dominant Western models of education and research, including individualism, reductionism, and linear thinking. Instead, it centres dynamic, interconnected approaches to how literacy and learning create meaning in our research and in our lives – exploring what being ecological might mean on a planet facing uncertain futures. Organized around action-oriented circular themes—such as Becoming, Composting, Futuring, Listening, Unsettling, and Storying—the course positions literacy as an adaptive, responsive process that can benefit all disciplines. By encouraging the unlearning of dominant systems of knowledge and cultivating relational, regenerative ways of being, the course equips students to envision and contribute to possible ecological futures rooted in connection, repair, and meaningful change.