ABSTRACT
The course “Stonehenge” is a microhistory using the techniques of the SHES approach to sustainability education, including a holistic, supradisciplinary methodology that introduces students to the use of systemic resolution to reveal the systemic and interactional complexity of a sustainability situation (Chapter 7, this volume). Utilizing an examination of the environmental and human history of the Salisbury Plain, on which Stonehenge is located, students are introduced to systemic resolution, systemic synthesis, temporal thinking, social learning, and sustainable alternatives to sustainability situations (Chapters 4, 5, 7, and 8, this volume). We begin with a presentation of the Salisbury Plain as it is today, proceed to a discussion of how the systemic and interactional complexity of the landscape came about, the relationships and concepts attached to it, and the forces that impacted its 8500 years of use. We then come back to the question of what students would like to see happening at Stonehenge, taking into account the multiple narratives spun over the past 200 years to justify local and official responses to managing, protecting, and sustaining this landscape. The students' projects then revolve around backcasting questions of how we might address the present-day situation (Chapters 7 and 8, this volume).
