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In this course, students will learn the fundamentals of observing the night sky with a telescope. This course will teach how to find the basic constellations and how to use both manual and computerized telescopes to point at celestial objects in the night sky. While there will be some classroom time to teach fundamental concepts, the vast majority of the class will consist of practical, hands-on time with telescopes at Stickney Observatory.

In a Practical Introduction to Material Science, students will be exploring the science of glaze and clay chemistry. This course is designed to enable students with the confidence to understand material science and to overcome any trepidation they may feel about glaze and clay formulation. Beginning with developing an understanding of the major components of a glaze or clay body and their origins and culminating with a self-directed final project that utilizes a custom clay body and unique glazes that are designed to fulfill the student’s choice of predetermined traits.

“One could even compare the function of Renaissance perspective with that of critical philosophy… The result was a translation of psychophysiological space into mathematical space; in other words, an objectification of the subjective.”

— Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form

 How do I begin? What's happening already…we are the studio.

The raucous and repressive but also radical and recalcitrantly white supremacist period c. 1918-1941 has many names. In the U.S. this generation-long span between the two World Wars encompasses or overlaps, e.g. The Harlem Renaissance, The Jazz Age, The Depression, Prohibition, The Dust Bowl, The Progressive Era, and Jim Crow. In this visual studies course, we’ll investigate and analyze emerging forms of cultural production born out of an America at odds with its future, its past, and the lives its increasingly diverse population imagine for themselves.

Learning to draw is as much about learning how to use your hand as it is learning how to see. The focus of this course is learning to draw from observation and developing close looking skills; to that end this course will expand your capacity to see and represent what you see by inviting you to explore an array of methods, materials, and techniques. 

Where might automation fit into an art practice? How might we choose to orient ourselves and our work to technology that is (usually) developed with mass production in mind? How do we reconcile the desire for novelty, experimentation, and accidents as we depend on machines and softwares that require our participation in pre-determined, often rigid, ways?

Earth and Environmental Science work begins with making observations of natural phenomena and collecting quantitative field data. This course will teach the basic methodologies used by scientists to collect and analyze field data. This will include how to make and record careful observations of landscapes and Earth materials, how to collect water, soil, and rock samples, and the use of data-loggers to make continuous observations of phenomena.

Galaxies are massive collections of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter. They are both the birthplace of stars and planets and the signposts of the universe. By studying what happens inside galaxies, we are able to understand the conditions under which stars form. By studying the galaxies themselves, we can understand how the environment shapes their structure and makeup. By studying the distribution of galaxies, we gain insight into the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole.

This is an analog film-based black-and-white photography course designed for those with little or no experience in photography. Emphasis will be placed on the individual application of camera and darkroom techniques. The course comprises technical lectures, darkroom demonstrations; lectures on historical and contemporary photographs as well as class critiques.

This is an introductory course on the theory and practice of analyzing and displaying geo-spatial information. The methods that students will learn have wide-ranging applications in the natural and social sciences. Students will learn how to utilize mapping and spatial geographic information systems software to analyze patterns within spatial datasets and communicate information through maps. Students will be expected to develop their own work and are encouraged to use data from other classes or projects.

The idea of old growth forests evokes romantic notions of "wild" and "natural" landscapes, especially in Vermont where our settler-colonial history includes rapid and widespread deforestation for logging and agriculture. How do ecologists identify "old growth" and what lessons about ecological structure, function, and processes can we learn from these places? Bennington College is home to one of the preeminent old growth researchers, faculty emeritus Kerry Woods, who taught ecology here from 1986 through 2021.

Photography was used scientific purposes and a tool of imperial during the early years of its invention. These two things have helped shaped its historical representation of the body as well as its descriptive language. Marginal groups of individuals when they were represented in photography were often presented in a stereotypical manner. This course will offer students an opportunity to confront this history but also to reimagine and reconstruct it through both text and images.

Screen printing is an extremely versatile means of reproducing a 2-D image onto a variety of objects.  Hand-drawn, painted, photographic and digital images can all be used singularly and in combination with each other.  Preparation and processing is relatively simple and multiples can be produced quickly. In this class, we will print with non-toxic, water-based inks.