A college professor has designed a course to teach students about sustainable tourism and regional planning. He wanted not to use air travel as many summer abroad courses do because of the carbon foot print. As he says "Combine my love of Amtrak with a desire to get students out of the classroom, and we found ourselves riding across the country to learn about sustainable tourism, landscapes and urban and regional planning."
Students rode Amtrak for over 100 hours and visited six locations. Wish I could have found a way to justify a course like this when I was teaching.
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Sadly, the political rhetoric surrounding this issue will cloud what is really an interesting take on the value of travel as part of higher educational studies. One of the benefits of my college education was being taught to see the world through a different lens and challenge my preconceived notions of the world. Contrary to some hyperbole that is often found online, I was not indoctrinated in college to see the world as my professors thought but taught by those same professors the tools and the knowledge to do my own research and form my own opinion.
Part of my education that had nothing to do with school involved riding Amtrak rather frequently to both of my "home" states of New Jersey and Arizona from Indiana during my college years. Trains don't go through the best parts of town they simply go through the heart of towns and cities of this great nation, and it was an eye-opening and thoroughly enjoyable experience regardless of how well the train performed on schedule. As I am close to my 28th year of professional registration as an Architect who is now registered in eight jurisdictions, I can say that those journeys of my youth have greatly informed me when it comes to urban and regional planning.