2007-12-05T14:32:00.001-08:00

Dear student, colleague:

We're Dave Rosane and Valerie Druguet -- and that's our son, Manny, with us in Alaska. We've been designing ECOLOGY and ecoliteracy courses since 1997, working specifically with the City University of New York and Cornell University.

We teach in many different countries, in all sorts of environments, mostly in the field, from the sidewalks of New York deep into the tropical rainforests of Venezuela, Peru and the Dominican Republic. We specialize in urban and rainforest ecology, tropical ornithology, industrial ecology and ethnobiology.

Dave is an environmental educator, naturalist and writer, from the US. Valerie is a visual artist from France. Dave does the writing, the research. Valerie produces educational media, mostly nature photography & video for the classroom. While Dave is busy talking, Valerie captures rare wildlife behavior and important natural phenomena -- things like migration, communication, cognition, social intelligence, symbioses, chemical ecology, natural selection...

We work mostly with undergraduate research training programs, notably Cornell/MIRT summer programs for minority students and 'College Now' high school initiatives at CUNY. At Cornell we teach under Dr Eloy Rodriguez and in collaboration with Lab of Ornithology faculty; at CUNY, with the School of Professional Studies, Queens and Kingsborough Community College.

>> Ecoliteracy 2.0
What makes our work unique is 1) our holistic approach to ecology (see below) and 2) Valerie's wildlife footage - her stunning photography and natural history video have helped us design scores of highly INTERACTIVE and dynamic content pieces, notably for CUNY's 'Nature of New York' modules. Valerie's imagery brings context, vibrancy and a lasting impression to the learning experience, especially for underprivileged inner-city students hemmed in by traditional classroom environments.

Our course materials also include sound, video-enhanced powerpoint, course-specific websites that we have designed, databases, student blogs and discussion forums...Naturally, we take our 'urban' students on fieldtrips, too; to city parks, community gardens, waterfronts. We explore the mega infrastructure intrinsic to the industrial metabolism of cities (waste treatment facilities, transportation and energy hubs...).

We've contributed frequently to elementary, layperson and public programs as well, in ecoliteracy and environmental and social justice, designing field trips, museum exhibits, panels, etc., in Europe, the States and Latin America.

>>> The experience of a lifetime
In perhaps our most rewarding 'venue' we invite pre-med and agriculture students from the US to participate in a community outreach program I initiated in 1998 with the Ye'kuana nation, in the Venezuelan Amazon, in collaboration with Cornell/MIRT. The project seeks to help local indigenous cultures cope with change, issues of health and nutrition, resource allocation, land rights, horticulture, animal husbandry, biodiversity and education - while harnessing the energy and goodwill of young college students.

>> rhizome
We take a holistic and systems theory approach to ecology; we've been largely influenced by the work of Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva, Paul Mankiewicz and William Rees; in anthropology by Claude Levi-Strauss and in behavioral ecology by Boris Cyrulnik. Our teaching methodology is experiential. We are self taught.

One recurrent theme in our classes is how the science of 'ecology' lies at the crossroads of practically every other discipline known to man, from math to physics to economics, political science, history, philosophy or first nation belief systems. Our worldview might best be summed up in the first laws of ecology as proposed by Brooklyn-born eco-socialist Barry Commoner: 1) everything is connected to everything else and 2) there's no such thing as a free lunch. The Iroquois were saying the same thing 300 years ago.

(We've written 15 essays on the subject...)

Following are some examples of the film and photography created for the lectures, workshops, promotional videos, etc, that we have coauthored. We are equally proficient in web, e-newsletter and database design.

>>Email us at drosane[at]gmail.com

peace,
Dave Rosane and Val Druguet, dba Ecoliteracy 2.0

Film:

Peregrine falcon chick_Chris Nadareski_NYC_DEP

Hand feeding wild birds_NYC_College Now Workshop

Monarchs in Manhattan, migrating

CUNY field trip_Urban Ecology_NYC_Jamaica Bay

'Our' ecology:

ecoliteracy 2.0