Environmentalism and Ecocriticism—The Cultural History of Trees, A Hands-on Learning Project Wood has been the most important material in the history of human technological practices, yet today it seems to have been reduced to crooked 2x4s sold at the local home center. This seminar will examine trees and lumber as they function in human technological practices and in our culture. We will study how trees figure in current debates about the environment, including tree structure and forest composition, trees and the law, and arguments about plant intelligence. Not content with just reading about trees, we will also do some woodworking. On consultation with the operators of the Georgia Tech Day Care center in Home Park, the class, will design, fabricate, and install structure(s) for the children’s playground made from the wood of an old pecan tree recently taken down at the center. The design process will include hand drawing and modeling as well as CADing, some 3d printing, and perhaps some CNC fabrication in addition to using traditional tools (hand saws, planes, draw knives, broad axes, chisels).