Curriculum

Place Corps curriculum is led by local educators and community leaders. All workshops offered are organized by 5 core curriculum spokes. View these spokes below and click each link to view sample courses and workshops!

Mission Driven Leadership + Entrepreneurship

Politics, Ethics, + Aesthetics

Practical Life Skills

Creative Praxis

Communications

Mission Driven Leadership + Entrepreneurship: Place Corps fellows will become effective socio-ecological leaders and active community members equipped to be innovative entrepreneurs and change-makers.

What this means: This core spoke of the Place Corps curriculum means learning how to develop projects, small and large, that serve your community. Over the past few years, fellows have developed and contributed to a number of projects serving the Kingston Community such as…

*Place Corps Expo, 2022. Place Corps Fellow Konnor Stella presenting a project he did using his design+build skills to an audience of Place Corps community members and partners.*

Politics, Ethics, + Aesthetics: Fellows will learn to Integrate contextual ways of thinking in real-world situations through an understanding of complex systems and inter-relationships. They will develop a library of cross-disciplinary theories and practices related to social and environmental justice.

What this means: This means understanding how stories create the world around us, and how these stories are made with words, images, and other tools of communication and power. We, as citizens, artists, and thinkers, can change, participate in, and create stories, and in doing so, improve the world around us.

Place Corps fellows learning about printmaking with a risograph machine in order to create zines and spread information using visual language with Cosmic Doghouse Press at D.R.A.W. Neighborhood Print Studio.

Practical Life Skills: Fellows will achieve a sophisticated understanding of, and personal engagement with, ecological systems. They will develop the vocabulary and skills needed to design and build sustainable context-appropriate architecture and landscapes. They will practice growing food and applying a variety of organic and biodynamic farming practices. Fellows will explore skills of traditional homesteading, and will learn the economics of living, and develop sustainable household governance skills.

What this means: Fellows develop a toolkit of practical life skills, ranging from financial literacy, to cooking, to basic woodworking, to growing food, and more.

*Place Corps fellows standing among the pieces of the picnic table they built using hand and electric tools under the guidance of Architect and Place Corps facilitator Mark Ressl.*

Creative Praxis: Fellows will learn to use research and creative practice to explore concepts, experiences, and artifacts and to connect with themselves and others.

What this means: Exploring, finding, and practicing forms of creativity that help you connect with yourself and the world around you.

Fellows have the opportunity to explore many forms of creative practice during the fellowship.