Steffanie Scott

Background

About Steffanie Scott

My current growth edge is exploring earth-centred consciousness, earth-honouring food-land-community practices, relational pedagogies,#hospicingmodernity, climate emotions and somatic practices. I cultivate a sense of belonging to the land in Waterloo Region/Haldimand Tract through gardening and foraging food, herbal medicine making, and wildlife tracking. I’m also learning capoeira, Portuguese, vocal improv singing (Música do Círculo), and folklore. My 2025 eBook, Nature Connection Across the Curriculum: Resources for Post-secondary Educations, is free online (see the 2-min promo video). Areas of research/supervision:"Exploring ways of knowing and being to reconnect with the land, each other, and ourselves" · animism · relationality/relational learning · nature connection · land-based practices · community food systems · sharing circles · contemplative & embodied practices · honouring our pain for the world · emotions in sustainability education · story · mythopoetics · decoloniality · ancestral ways of knowing and being · reskilling · The Work That Reconnects I teach on regenerative food systems, decolonization, land-based pedagogy, and re-imagining geographies of development. Pre-COVID, I led several research projects on Ecological Agriculture in China and China's Changing Food System, and co-authored Organic Food and Farming in China: Top-down and Bottom Up Ecological Initiatives (2018). I led the Canadian Association for Food Studies (2012-14) and was inaugural co-chair of the Waterloo Region Food System Roundtable. I have published 50 academic articles and book chapters in journals including Agriculture and Human Values, Food Policy, Ecology and Society, Canadian Food Studies, Local Environment, Sustainability, and the Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development. I grew up as a settler on Lekwungen and Coast Salish territories (Victoria, British Columbia), with little knowledge of the colonial past or present. I have been part of the University of Waterloo’s Department of Geography and Environmental Management since 2003. I am also cross-appointed in the School of Environment, Resources & Sustainability (SERS).