In this course, students use the concept of “home” as a lens for seeing the connections between landscape, ecology, economy, history, and notions of human meaning. In a home, all these lines converge and materialize as property, shelter, family, lifestyle, and neighborhood. At once geographical and ideological, home is where our preconceptions and desires meet the realities of a landscape, where human ambition and nature mingle and entwine. This field- and service-based class uses southern Appalachian life as a case study of the rich – but often unnoticed -- conversation between landscape and culture. Open only to new first-year students.