Course outlines

More than pretty greenery
Students take a closer look at our relationship with plants

by Joy Poliquin

Dr. Nancy Turner likes to take forest walks with her class. Not to calm their nerves around exam time, not for exercise, but because the forests around UVic double as the best classroom ever.

Turner offers students in Environmental Studies 416: Ethnobotany a new glimpse at their natural environment. Their campus walks let them stop and smell the flowers, to see just how valuable local vegetation is.

“I try and give students the understanding right off the bat that all of us, no matter where our heritage or our roots are, have in our own history a deep relationship with plants,” says Turner. “That’s what this course is about — learning how we all have important knowledge about the way that plants are used for food, material, medicine or ceremony.”

The fall course delves into how local indigenous people use plants, as well as the cultural uses of plants around the world. Turner also teaches the ethical issues around knowledge, as well as topics like food, materials, medicine and plants, ceremonies, and language and classification.

Guest speakers give lectures about native plant history, and the way plant remains can help archaeologists understand how people once lived. “I place a strong importance on participatory and experiential learning,” says Turner. “Learning is one thing, but putting that knowledge to use is another.” This outlook is evident in both the class projects and excursions.

Students are asked to create an object with traditional plant material for a project, and seem to enjoy the process.

“They make everything from fish lures to fire-making regalia, baskets or paper, you name it,” says Turner. “Almost all of them come away with the realization that it’s not simple to make something. It takes a lot of knowledge and skill, and they develop a great respect for the knowledge system that supports creating something with their hands.”

Turner doesn’t stop there with her focus on this hands-on approach to learning. Each October she takes her class on an excursion to Sandcut Beach.

“We spend the day there, make instruments out of kelp, and in the past we’ve barbecued salmon on the beach with our First Nations students. Then we make a big pot of wild tea, using spruce and licorice fern and blackberry leaves and nettle, and hang out while the food is cooking.”

The food is prepared by pit cooking, a traditional cooking method used all over the world. It involves digging a hole in the ground, heating dense rocks until they’re glowing hot, putting the rocks in the pit, and covering them with specific vegetation. Next, Turner and her students put food like potatoes, garlic, beets and taro, cover the food with fern fronds, a tarp and sand, and let it cook for hours.

“It’s really fun and very participatory, plus it has a lot of importance for peoples’ survival,” says Turner. “And that’s what the course is all about.”