Perhaps you’ve never considered going to more than one college at the same time in order to study the same topic only in a different environment. But that is exactly the purpose behind the Eco League.

Eco League colleges offer experiential education

The Eco League is comprised of five small liberal arts institutions across the U.S. that share similar missions and value systems. Their goal is to educate students to build a sustainable future through environmental stewardship and social change by stressing experiential education and global perspectives based on a “sense of place.”

That sense of place is what helps define the idea behind the semester exchange programs which allow students from one school to study at another. This gives them the unique access to the various ecosystems throughout the country.

Students graduate better prepared to take on the real-world challenge of creating sustainable communities no matter where they choose to work.

Five U.S. colleges form the Eco League

Alaska Pacific University sits on a 170-acre wooded campus in the heart of modern Anchorage and offers both undergraduate and graduate degree programs in education (K-8), environmental science, liberal studies, outdoor studies, counseling psychology, business administration, and combinations of the above.

Ranked among the best of Master’s Level Universities by U.S. News & World Report, the small student body of 575 allows for an average class size of 12.

College of the Atlantic in Maine is a 35-acre campus on Frenchman Bay in the small town coastal setting of Bar Harbor. The college also has two off-shore island research stations and an 85-acre organic farm.

All 300 students major in Human Ecology, the study of our relationship with our natural, social, and man-made environment, with an interdisciplinary, self-directed degree plan.

Green Mountain College is in the historic rural town of Poultney, Vermont, just a few hours’ drive from numerous metropolitan areas. Boston, Mass., is about 3 ½ miles to the east and Syracuse, New York, is about the same distance to the west.

There are 25 major areas of study for the 750 students who attend the school, providing an ample number of academic choices. And if that’s not enough to get you interested, the college gets over 50 percent of its electricity from cow power.

Northland College sits in the northern Wisconsin city of Ashland, next to Lake Superior and the Chequamegon National Forest. Established in 1906 and affiliated with the United Church of Christ, Northland integrates liberal arts studies with an environmental emphasis.

With the largest number of major choices—there are 30 undergrad degree programs—the student body of 750 has a lot to choose from.

Prescott College, located in the picturesque mountains of Arizona about two hours north of Phoenix, is surrounded by pine trees and fresh air. With approximately 500 undergraduate students, the average on campus class size is 12. Go into the field and that number declines to six.

What this beautiful location and small campus has to offer is a group of multi-disciplinary programs in adventure education, arts and letters, education/teacher certification, environmental studies, cultural and regional studies and human development.