Prison Ecology Curriculum Project

Through a partnership with Metro State, Kate Derickson has been teaching and learning with incarcerated students over the past five years. She has taught courses including Our Globalizing World, Geographic Perspectives on Current Events, and Geography through Literature at Stillwater State Prison, a maximum security men's facility in eastern Minnesota. Kate and Rebecca Walker have also led a research cluster with incarcerated graduates of the TREC program, engaging students in undergraduate-level research into racialization and urban development in Chicago.

Building on this teaching and research experience, Kate is working with Katie Wilson and Dri Tattersfield to develop an ecology curriculum that will provide high-quality science education to incarcerated students and create opportunities for ecological data collection across a range of facilities, including maximum security prisons and earned living units — less restrictive settings that allow for greater freedom of movement. The goal is to implement the curriculum in Minnesota prisons and network with other higher education in prison programs to share both the curriculum and implementation best practices. This work is ongoing and supported by an advisory committee comprised of ecologists, prison educators, formerly incarcerated people, and current incarcerated students.

This work is supported by the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Minnesota and the Black Midwest Initiative.