Spring 2026 Course Search

Building on structural and reactivity insights developed in Chemistry 1, this course delves into molecular structure and modern theories of bonding, especially as they relate to the reaction patterns of functional groups. We will focus on the mechanisms of reaction pathways and develop an understanding for how those mechanisms are experimentally explored. There will be numerous readings from the primary literature, including some classic papers that describe seminal experiments.

An herbarium is a museum of pressed plants, a record of flora following a system that dates back to the 16th century. Large herbaria at institutions like D.C.’s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Chicago’s Field Museum, Cambridge’s Harvard University, and London’s Kew Gardens contain millions of specimens, collected from around the world. But, most herbaria are small herbaria, with less than 10,000 specimens.

This course is for students who are doing advanced work in Sustainable Agriculture or community engagement work. Students will create an individual project developing project management skills that include planning, research, development, and implementation. The students will have the opportunity to collaborate with a community partner and will present their completed project at the end of term. A small project budget will be provided supported by The Bennington Fair Food Initiative grant.

In this course, we will focus on developing the statistical skills needed to answer questions by collecting data, designing experimental studies, and analyzing large publicly available datasets. The skills learned will also help students to be critical consumers of statistical results. We will use a variety of datasets to develop skills in data management, analysis, and effective presentation of results.

How does influence travel from one thing to another? In Newton’s mechanics of particles and forces, influences travel instantaneously across arbitrarily far distances. Newton himself felt this to be incorrect, but he did not suggest a solution to this problem of “action at a distance.” To solve this problem, we need a richer ontology: The world is made not only of particles, but also of fields. As examples of the field concept, we study the theory and applications of the electric field and the magnetic field.

Why would a forest ecology course include an assignment to knit a wool hat? In this class we will explore the lasting impact of sheep on the Vermont landscape, from the earliest settler-colonizers through today’s small batch fiber mills and second growth forests studded with stone walls. Sheep, and especially a 19th century boom in merino sheep, radically altered Vermont’s forests and inspired early writing on conservation and sustainable land management.

Accessibility describes the practice of freeing a space or an event so it might be visited by more people in more ways than one could ever presume at the outset. In this course, we will explore the litany of practices that allow more people (and in particular, disabled, mad, and chronically ill people) into all spheres of public life with a particular focus on performance events.

All but a handful of the objects you see in the night sky are stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Although we know about these stars only from studying their light, we know today that they are not just points of light, but large, gravitationally‐bound balls of plasma governed by the laws of physics. Stars, together with dust, gas, and dark matter, are found in larger structures – galaxies. In turn, galaxies, are located in even larger structures called galaxy groups and galaxy clusters.

The physics of light and color initially appears simple: light is a wave and the wavelength of light determines color. While this basic physical description of light is easy to state, going deeper quickly opens up large range of questions. How do different wavelengths of light combine to make colors? How does light from different sources interfere? How does light change path when it travels through different materials? How do humans sense light both in and outside of the visible spectrum? How does our perception of color affect how we interpret our world?

Physically, sound is simply the compression of air around us. However, this relatively simple description obscures a much richer understanding of sound. From how different sounds are generated and perceived to how different sounds can combine to make something new to how to design acoustically pleasant spaces, the physics of sound plays a key role. This course is about the fundamentals that underlie sound and is designed to serve as an introduction to those who are interested in going further.

In this course, students will gain experience with using simple programmable robots and how they can be utilized in STEM education. The focus of this class will be on learning and designing lessons for K-12 students utilizing these robots. This class is accessible for students at all levels of computer programming experience (including none). 

How do we transition to a low-carbon economy in a manner that doesn’t reinscribe the social and environmental injustices that have plagued our fossil-fueled economy? On one hand, the continued burning of fossil fuels is producing environmental crises that threaten to destabilize the very foundations of collective life, with poor and historically marginalized communities bearing the brunt of the suffering. On the other hand, renewable energy technologies are far from environmentally and socially benign.

Catastrophic events—droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and landslides—are growing in frequency and intensity around the world. As more of the global population concentrates in urban areas, the nature and consequences of these natural hazards are taking on a distinct and often violent shape in today’s metropolises and megacities. This course investigates how urban life reshapes both the impact of disasters and our capacity to respond to them.

Economic inequality is often described in terms of uneven distribution of income and wealth. Yet, more importantly, it reflects uneven access to opportunities, advantages, and life chances. Why do some people enjoy a higher standard of living and better quality of life than others? Are such inequalities fair and just? What role do history, policy, and institutions play in sustaining or reducing inequality?

Why does chronic hunger endure even in times of prosperity? How can famine devastate entire regions in extreme cases, while food deserts quietly persist in wealthy countries like the United States? And what does it mean to treat nourishment not as charity or commodity, but as a right of citizenship?

This is an environmental policy course with a focus on public action. The class will explore the dimensions of the production, use and disposal of plastics, including climate change impacts, alternatives to single-use plastic packaging, and the need for innovation. There will also be a focus on environmental justice.

Drawing from news articles, interviews, archival materials, and more, writers throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries have sought to document the world through poetry.

This is the post-fellowship course for students selected to participate in the Endeavor Environmental Action Fellowship Program. The class is designed to sharpen each student’s skills and capacities for success in their future work, and ultimately, to successfully advance environmental justice issues, address complex societal challenges, and become effective change-makers in the world.

The CAPA Workshop is for Seniors who are engaged in their advanced work and want to complete a project as part of it in Public Action.Students are able to connect this work to any area of study at Bennington College. Each student will be required to assemble a digital portfolio that will include their research or thesis, along with a description and implementation of their project during the term. A proposal form will be required once admitted to the class. Projects, can be local, national or international. 

In 1948, Elanor Roosevelt, instrumental for the approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said “In a true sense, human rights are a fundamental object of law and government in a just society. Human rights exist to the degree that they are respected by people in relations with each other and by governments in relations with their citizens.”

Human mobility has been an inherent human condition throughout history. From earliest human history, women and men have migrated in search of a better life, to populate other places on the planet, or to escape and survive human-made or natural dangers. Today migration is a fact of life for an increasing number of people around the world: there are more than 281 million migrants that cross borders, about 71.2 million that are internally displaced and around 40 million seeking asylum. Almost half of them are women.

This class will introduce students to creating digital archive that includes digitizing photographs, documents, videotapes and basic types of metadata. We will have discussions about why digitizing personal collections is so important. Students will be expected to bring their own materials to the class. 

With billions of images uploaded to the internet daily, we are bombarded by media content on corporately owned platforms from news outlets to algorithmic social media feeds and YouTube videos. How do we create meaningful independent media for each other in this current age of disinformation? What importance do physical materials such as books, zines, posters, and pamphlets still have in disseminating information and ideas to our communities? How does the art of self-publishing become a means of empowerment and an act of care?

This Module will serve as an introduction to the work of Peacebuilding around the world, both in theory and practice. Vahidin Omanovic, Director of Center for Peacebuilding in Bosnia, will be joining us to reflect on his work and introduce us to key topics in peacebuilding, including: peacebuilding in a local community, obstacles for peace, identity,  discrimination, methods of sustainable peacebuilding.

This Module will introduce Conflict Resolution skills and the fundamentals of Dialogue exchanges.

Journalism & Democracy is the result of a grant and partnership with the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont, a national network of student journalism programs around the United States. The course recognizes the essential role that the arts and culture play in a healthy democracy. Arts and culture invite us to experience perspectives and ways of life different from our own; they shape conversations about freedom, equal rights and other values that are at the core of American society; and they help us engage with the world in new and important ways.

This class will examine interesting thinkers about our future.  Artists, anthropologists, afro futurists, writers, scientists and philosophers have all thought about what we are facing in our futures. Books and essays such as “The Fourth Turning” by Neil Howe, “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber, “The End of History” by Francis Fukuyama,  "Emergent Strategies" by Adrienne Maree Brown, “A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit, “The Work After Our Rage” by Kenneth Bailey and Lori Lobenstine”, "DeltasUNite and the UNCCRD" and others.

In this course, students will document the lived experiences of individuals during this immensely challenging period in American history. Students will receive training in the methods of oral history, interviewing techniques, historical ethics, and archival work. They will conduct interviews of classmates and community members. These narratives will then be preserved in order to provide future generations with a firsthand account of the United States during this period of history. 

This class will investigate various pedagogical approaches to food studies by examining curriculums, topics and discourses being taught at some academic institutions. More importantly, we will put focus on researching art collectives, contemporary civic engagement practices, and other non-institutional models developed by creative practitioners and activists, which engage with food as a conduit to undertake social, political and cultural identity issues and to enhance their community cohesion.

Students will observe using the telescopes at Stickney Observatory for a series of astronomical observing projects. After a range of initial assigned projects designed to acquaint students with the capabilities of the observing equipment and astrophysically interesting observations, students will propose and carry out their own observing projects looking at astrophysical phenomena of interest to them. As this is a projects class, it is expected that students will be able to devote significant time (mostly at night) observing on their own or in small teams.