Classes, Programs, Workshops & Events

The Pine Lake Institute offers classes, workshops and extended courses for Hartwick students and the public. These programs take place at the Pine Lake Environmental Campus and our main campus in Oneonta.


Classes

Every year, Hartwick College classes come to Pine Lake — for an afternoon, a week, a month, or even an entire semester. Whether in the arts, the sciences, or the humanities, they all take advantage of the special environment that only Pine Lake can offer.

Some classes which have visited or met at Pine Lake include:

Anthropology: Field School in Archaeology

Art & Art History: Color and Composition, Three Dimensional Design, Creating Interdisciplinary Performance, Ecocriticism

Biology: Ecology, Ecology and the Environment, Ornithology, Limnology, Principles of Biology, Winter Ecology

English: Creative Writing, Fiction, Poetry, Journal Writing, Chaucer, Old English

History: Women in History, Changes in the Land

Languages: Spanish Language Intensive

Music: Musical Theater

Religious Studies: Architecture of the Sacred, The World of North Indian Devotional Music

Theatre Arts: Movement and Metaphor, Creating Interdisciplinary Performance


Archaeology Field School

The Anthropology Department offers a summer course (ANTH 421 Field Research in Archaeology) in archaeological excavation methods at the Pine Lake Environmental Campus. The month-long course teaches students excavation techniques as well as laboratory skills such as artifact cataloging, artifact analysis, soil identification, mapping, and drawing.

Students excavate in the field five days a week, and work in the laboratory four nights a week processing the objects they have discovered. The field school qualifies students for jobs in federally funded contract archaeology projects.

Excavations take place at the Pine Lake site every other year. The site is located on the flood plain of Charlotte Creek. A Late Archaic camp of the Lamoka culture dating about 3000-1500 BC has been found. Lamoka and Susquehanna Broadspear projectile points, fragments of steatite bowls, and stone lined fire hearths were found. The Pine Lake field school is a joint project between Hartwick College and SUNY-Oneonta.

Instructor permission is required before registering. To secure instructor permission, contact Professor Klink at Cynthia.Klink@oneonta.edu


School Outreach

Hartwick College and the Oneonta City School District have formed a partnership which enables members of each community to learn and work collaboratively at the Environmental Campus.

The partnership is consistent with the key principles of environmental education and disseminates information and ideas that enable educators and students to explore the environment, investigate current related issues, and create environmental stewardship in an interdisciplinary style. Hartwick’s Environmental Campus is a “classroom without walls”.