Teacher: Emma Huggins and Niek Slooter
Dates for 4-week course:
April 28 – May 23, 2025
Times for Live Sessions: Monday through Thursday, Starting at 9:30am MT (which is 11:30am ET and 8:30am PT). Each live session lasts between 50 and 70 minutes.
Course Description
The first two weeks of this Botany course will be online, preparing us for the last two weeks of the course, where we will be together in-person. The (required) two-week in-person component (May 11-23) will take place at the United Plant Saver Sanctuary in Rutland, Ohio.
Join Niek and Emma while they explore the diverse plants, their anatomy, and their relations with the environment in the Appalachian Forest and Prairie in Ohio. This will be during the peak woodland bloom time, and the beginning of the prairie bloom. Come meet the plants and learn from the people that use them. We are not only studying botany, the stay will also include field trips and other farm experiences.
Topics covered in the online section of the class:
- Plant classification
- Flowers and nonvascular plants
- Plant reproduction
- Ecology of plants and invasive species
- Agriculture and human influence
About the In-Person Experience: After covering botany basics in the first two weeks of the course online, the in-person experience will get the students outside and deep into the world of plants. Most of our days will be spent at the United Plant Saver Sanctuary in Rutland Ohio. The 380 acre property has forest, wetlands, ponds, and prairie for us to learn in. There is indoor and outdoor classroom space, a botanical library, and miles of trails in the hills of Appalachia.
- Practice plant classification and using a plant key
- Observe how geology and environment determine what and how things grow
- Dissect plants and their parts to see and draw their morphology
- Learn about different farming practices, how to work with nature, and the importance of saving seeds
- Learn about transplanting and propagating plants
- Making cordage
- Dying with plants
- Doing sun prints (cyanotypes)
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Farm visits
- Nature drawing and photography
- Learn about these Ancient Earthworks, and what is known about the Native people who built them
- Ponder life in the fertile crescent where farming first began in the Western Hemisphere
- Visit the largest Flint seam in North America and learn how widely is was traded among native people
- Identify different plants in this glaciated area of Ohio
- Pomeroy is around 2 hours from the Columbus airport
- We will pick up the students from the Columbus airport. When planning your flight, please aim to arrive between noon and 4pm on May 11th.
- There is an extra cost for airport pickup from Columbus on May 11th for $25 one-way, $50 round trip.
- Please aim for the departures on May 23rd to be either in the morning around 6-9am, or the afternoon between 3-7pm. Also note that the drive to the airport will be around 2 hours.
- All room, board, supplies, and transportation during the program are included in the price.
- If there is more than just the student coming, we can help other family members find places to stay near by.
- If the students want to stay with their family, we can subtract the price of the bed and the breakfast (but they must eat before they come)
- Other family members are excluded from the Monday-Friday portion of class, but can join us on the weekend field trip and provide their own food and transportation.
Cost: The estimated cost for the entire 4-week course is $1500, which includes all course fees, materials, lodging, food, and local transportation. (This doesn’t include the cost of getting to Ohio.) This cost is based upon an enrollment of ten students. If more students enroll, then the cost will be less.
Please reach out if you have any questions.
About Emma: Emma Huggins has a bachelor’s degree in Botany from the University of Florida. She focused her honors work on ethnobotany and the medicinal plants in Nepal. After graduation she interned with United Plant Saver’s at their sanctuary in Rutland, OH. There, she was fully submerged in the plant world. She was introduced to a whole community of people living ethnobotany. She met her husband Hank there and started a farm and family. For the past 14 years they have homeschooled their 4 children (with
one now in college) in the Waldorf fashion, with their farm as a central focus. Hank is also a botanist and holds his permaculture certification. They both help teach and volunteer at the United Plant Saver Sanctuary
