Direct contact with soil alters emotional openness to the world

Evidence

My students are always different after root gathering. There is something tender in them, and open, as if they are emerging from the embrace of arms they did not know were there. Through them I get to remember what it is to open to the world as gift, to be flooded with the knowledge that the earth will take care of you, everything you need right there. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 855

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: hands-in-earth fieldwork as an underused pedagogical method for environmental education, contrasted with checklist field teaching from ch52.
• XREF: Directly relevant to Eco-Justice pedagogy course — experiential land-based education that reopens emotional connection.