The Outdoor Centre program evolved into Project NatureConnect (PNC) at the Institute of Global Education Department of Integrated Ecology as well as an educating counseling and healing with nature Applied Ecopsychology degree program at Akamai University in Hawaii. This year, its leadership training process for teachers and counselors celebrates its 50th anniversary. The process is described in Dr. Cohen's book "The Web of Life Imperative" and in his articles entitled: "The Science of Natural Attraction Ecology" and "The Hidden Voice in Natural Systems." in the N.Y. Times website About.com:
Originally, Trailside School participants studied how to establish authentic sensory contact with the renewing flow of the living Earth, in and around them..Students, teachers and counselors alike learned to interlace their thinking and feeling with the way nature's purity and cooperation work. They connected with the flow of natural systems in outdoor habitats and each other through the natural attraction sensations and feelings that are energized into our consciousness while in natural areas.
Trailside participants enjoyed, validated and incorporated the self-correcting wisdom of the web of life in their life and relationships as they explored how to create moments that let Earth teach. In 1978, the National Audubon Society identified the program as the most revolutionary school in America. Until recently, it incorporated the school as a degree program in their organization.
"The school's original application of its type of Ecopsychology today helps us remedy the key problem that we face," says Dr. Cohen, "We suffer because we deny that the nature-exploitive bias of Industrial Society indoctrinates us to believe that the way our nature-conquering stories teach to think and feel is superior to the attraction-sensitive way that nature works to produce its perfection and regenerative qualities."
Cohen has written ten books and many articles about his nature-connected thinking science that is also known as Natural Attraction Ecology (NAE). To make NAE readily available to caring individuals, Cohen's present NAE degree programs offer online environmental and outdoor education wilderness therapy training at tuition fees that are eighty percent less than most degree granting schools.
An anonymous Natural Attraction Ecology student wrote in her field study journal, "I feel very excited, liberated and solid in the awareness of nature's essence that I have developed. These nature-embracing classes have afforded me the ability to define my relationship to my environment in a manner that I have never had before. I trust how I feel. I know that my feelings are Earth-connected, real and valuable guides for myself. The reasonable acknowledgement of nature's genius and my constant care of my personal relationship with the natural is my lifeline, the very food I need for my soul and to help increase personal, social and environmental well-being"
For additional information and free materials:
www.ecopsych.com
360-378-6313
nature@interisland.net
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About Project NatureConnect
The pioneering mission of Project NatureConnect is to increase personal, social and environmental well-being by helping individuals genuinely connect their thinking and feeling with the sensory intelligence of nature's self-correcting flow, in and around them. The online program's low-cost, UNESCO approved, training courses and degrees enable its participants to make conscious sensory contact with the life-wisdom of the eons that awaits discovery within them and in natural areas, backyard or back country.
Program Founder and Director:
Recipient of the 1994 Distinguished World Citizen Award, Ecopsychologist Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D., is a Program Director of the Institute of Global Education, where he coordinates its Integrated Ecology Department and Project NatureConnect. He also serves on the faculty of Portland State University and Akamai University. Dr. Cohen has founded sensory environmental education outdoor programs independently and for the National Audubon Society and Lesley University (AEI). He conceived the 1985 National Audubon Conference "Is the Earth a Living Organism," and is an award winning author of "Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature,"""The Web Of Life Imperative" "Reconnecting With Nature." A video about his lifework may be viewed at http://www.imdb.comtitle/tt1357054/
"We cannot win the battle to increase the well-being of the web of life, that includes our life, without strengthening our natural senses, our emotional bonds with nature - for we will not fight to save what we do not love."
- Michael J. Cohen
http://www.ecopsych.com/mjcohen.html
Email: nature@interisland.net
360-378-6313, Pacific Time Zone