Eastern Mennonite High School students go on the road to develop a land ethic.

When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.—Aldo Leopold

With this quote from environmentalist Aldo Leopold inscribed on their T-shirts, 29 students and five faculty members from Eastern Mennonite High School in Harrisonburg, Va., headed westward on July 9, 2007, in our quest to create a land ethic. After traveling 22 days and nearly 8,000 miles through 22 states and nine National Parks and Monuments, we returned, tired but transformed.

In formal education, teachers inundate students with a deluge of information while trapped within the boundaries of our classrooms. True education involves educating beyond these cinderblock confines and exposing students to authentic questions in actual environments so they can find real answers. Discovery 2007: Creating a Land Ethic utilized the entire nation as our classroom, relying on a diverse collection of experiential learning strategies and experts with various perspectives to enhance dialogue about environmental issues that affect our world.

Adopting its theme from the works of Aldo Leopold, viewed by many as the father of our current environmental movement, the Discovery group explored issues in many areas, including agriculture, water, urban environments, deserts, salmon and rivers, and megafauna management. We explored multiple perspectives on each issue through inquiry, experiences and guest speakers. This type of education—known as dissonance learning—demonstrated the complexity of environmental issues as students heard divergent, often conflicting, points of view from experts on various topics, summarized these views and formulated their own convictions about them.

For example, one issue we studied was the controversy concerning wild bison herds in the West. We heard from a rancher who needed to protect his cattle from infections spread by bison. Next, members of an environmental group shared their passion to return the West to its natural state, letting the bison roam free. Finally, a park ranger explained the need to protect yet manage the bison herds in Yellowstone National Park. Students learned the facets of issues, summarized their conclusions in essays and PowerPoint presentations and posted these on their Web page while traveling in a motor coach customized for the trip with lab spaces and laptops.

While our group wrestled with environmental issues, we also learned how to live in community along the way. We camped in tents and prepared our own meals from supplies kept in the “discovery trailer,” which was outfitted with solar panels to provide energy for a refrigerator as well as additional power during the evenings. We shared not only our meals but the stars with one another.

On the way home, we visited the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wis. Seeing the famous Leopold shack in Wisconsin and walking where he walked helped us connect with his vision for developing a land ethic.

Finally, we visited the Goshen (Ind.) College’s Merry Lea Environmental Center. Professors Luke Gascho and Ryan Sensenig helped us reflect on the previous 22 days and realize how developing a land ethic is a spiritual matter. “We need to go beyond sustainability and move into regeneration and transformation,” said Gascho as he urged us to care for God’s creation as part of living our faith.

As our motor coach rumbled into the school parking lot after our journey, we realized that not only had we had journeyed many miles, we had also progressed in our perspective. One student commented: “We can all make a difference if we make an effort. The effort will trigger others to change their way of life, having a positive effect. And if God told us to care for the world, why can’t we? We don’t want to be held responsible for damaging the world for other generations.”

Myron E. Blosser teaches at Eastern Mennonite School, Harrisonburg, Va.