PRESCOTT
COLLEGE
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Program Accreditation and College Credit​​​​​​​​​​​​
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​Prescott College provides:
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Academic accreditation for the Field Semester
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Official course listing and transcripted college credit
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Oversight of academic quality and learning outcomes
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The option for Field Semester students to matriculate to Prescott College as full time students
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Field Semester in Regenerative Design
Course Descriptions
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​​​​​The Western Slope Slope Field Semester in Regenerative Design is a 16-credit immersive journey designed to integrate personal growth, ecological literacy, and regenerative design practice. Over the course of 16 weeks, students move through a carefully sequenced experience that blends place-based learning with living systems thinking and applied design projects, culminating in real-world community engagement. Courses are taught in two 8 week blocks with 2 courses taking place concurrently during each 8 week block ​​​​​​​​​​​
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Course 1 – Bioregional Awareness & Living Systems Thinking (4 Credits)
The semester begins with grounding—both in self and in place. Students orient to their bioregion through personal visioning, mapping exercises, exposure to traditional ecological knowledge systems (TEK) and deep ecological inquiry. They explore watersheds, ecological flows, and cultural histories, learning to see patterns and relationships through systems thinking. Field experiences and toolkits such as Bioregional Mapping, Panarchy Mapping Logs, and Watershed Analysis Templates help students document and interpret their surroundings. Weekly assignments move from self-location and mapping exercises to synthesis portfolios, ensuring that by the end of Week 8, each student has a comprehensive systems portrait of the bioregion, ready to inform applied design work in the semester’s second half.By the end of this phase, students can read a landscape as both a living system and a cultural narrative, preparing them to design with a regenerative lens.​​​​
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Course 3 – Place-Informed Project Design Studio (4 Credits)
Students transition from theory to practice. Working with local project partners, they apply place-informed design methods to create regenerative interventions. The studio format emphasizes iteration, feedback, and collaborative problem-solving. Toolkits for Stakeholder Engagement, Design Prototyping, and Systems Leverage Analysis guide the process.
Projects are grounded in the ecological and cultural realities explored in Courses 1 and 2, ensuring that solutions are both context-specific and community-informed.
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Course 4 – Regenerative Practice & Community Engagement (Capstone) (4 Credits)
The final phase is about implementation and integration. The student cohort works together on a shared regenerative design project with a local partner, each student contributing through their chosen role. This is where ideas become action, and learning becomes legacy. Students create a Story of Place portfolio, present their work to community stakeholders, and reflect on their personal and professional growth. By the close of the semester, each student has a tangible project outcome, a refined professional portfolio, and a deepened connection to both their own purpose and the vitality of their bioregion.
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Weeks 1–8: Laying the Foundations (Courses 1 & 2)
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Weeks 9–16: From Design Studio to Community Practice (Courses 3 & 4)
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Course 2 – Inner & Outer Dimensions of Regenerative Design (4 Credits)
Running concurrently, this course focuses on the inner work that fuels outer change. Through guided reflective practices, spiral journaling, and narrative alignment exercises, students explore identity, thresholds, and purpose. They integrate resilience thinking, network weaving, and regenerative indicators into their design mindset. Assignments blend inner reflection with applied frameworks, ensuring that students not only understand regenerative design principles but can embody them in their work. Through the A.D.A.P.T. framework, they examine the relationship between self-awareness and effective engagement with complex systems. By the midpoint of the semester, students have a clear sense of personal purpose connected to the needs and opportunities of their bioregion.
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