Imagine a college semester spent travelling the American West from the Mexican border through Oregon to understand the "political, ecological, and human dimensions of environmental issues" from those on the ground.  

21 Whitman College students [Walla Walla, WA]

ventured forth from their manicured campus .... This wasn't a semester abroad. It was a semester alfresco. Call them Roads Scholars

... Semester in the West is all about rocking students off balance a bit with their preconceived notions of what the West is," [Prof. Brock] says, during a stopover in dusty Wells, Nev. "So often the cast of characters out here is divided into two groups: heroes and villains, friends and foes."

Professor Phil Brick, founder and director of the course:    

Many people seem to think that the academy is not the place where environmental education -- conceived as activism -- should take place. Nonsense. If you believe this, your understanding of education is pathetically narrow. Education is not about indoctrination or simply imparting information. It is instead about critical thinking and opening the mind to new possibilities.

Some of the experiences:

... they lunched with tribal elders and came to understand why some Navajos reject the trappings of the material world. In Jackson Hole, WY, in contrast, they got a glimpse of the gilded world of the rich.

"I thought I knew the West from watching Hollywood movies and taking hiking trips to Montana and Wyoming," says Greenberg. "But as a region it's far more complicated and confusing than I ever imagined."