Art Adds Value to Ecological Field Courses: A Multi‐Year Case Study in Higher Education

ABSTRACT This study presents empirical evidence supporting the integration of artmaking into place‐based ecological field courses as an impactful pedagogical tool. Undergraduate field courses in ecology promote experiential learning by immersing students in hands‐on activities and observations within natural settings. These experiences have well‐documented and transformative impacts on students' identity development, attachment to nature, and well‐being. Certain visual arts practices, like ecological art, mirror the experiential nature of field courses through hands‐on creation and reflective engagement with landscapes. Despite this overlap, the educational value of integrating the visual arts into place‐based field courses in ecology remains understudied. Here, we introduce a sample course design, evaluation method, and results from a seven‐week intensive field course in the ecological arts for undergraduates at Cornell University. In this traveling course, titled Earth Projects, students draw upon scientific and cultural knowledge to create place‐based artworks. We incorporated a Likert‐type survey into a pre‐post study design to assess a range of student outcomes—including identity, belonging, and place attachment—over two years. A long‐standing traditional field course, Field Biology, served as a comparison group for one year. Results suggest that field courses integrating art and ecology may support the development of multifaceted identities, a sense of belonging to the environmental sciences, and stronger place attachment on various regional scales. Given these findings, we propose a reimagining of curricula in ecology and environmental science to incorporate the ecological arts. We conclude with recommendations for educators wanting to introduce similar courses at their institutions.