LEWISTON- Bates College students have taken classes in Lewiston for decades.
This semester, they will be able to take a class on the city itself.
Introduction to the Study of the City, a semester-long environmental studies seminar, will give students a look at their adopted city from a community planner’s point of view.
“That forces students to look beyond buildings and pavement and asphalt,” said Brunswick Planning Director Theo Holtwijk, who will teach the course.
Over the next semester, 60 Bates juniors and seniors will spend their class time getting to know Lewiston by talking with people about their favorite spots, photographing parts of the city and mapping neighborhoods.
And starting this week, the students will invite the public to learn with them.
On Wednesday, the college will present filmmaker Melissa Paly and her documentary “Livable Landscapes: By Chance or By Choice?”
The hour-long film documents how northern New England communities, including Scarborough, have responded to development.
Free and open to the public, the film will be presented at 7 p.m. in the Keck Classroom of Pettengill Hall.
On Sept. 17, the college will present a discussion of urban communities with sociologist-photographer Camilo José Vergara. The author of “The New American Ghetto,” Vergara has spent more than 20 years recording the transformation and deterioration of the nation’s major cities.
That discussion will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Muskie Archives. It will be free and open to the public.
While most environmental studies students end up learning about plants and water quality, Holtwijk said, his class will give them the opportunity to focus on other aspects of environmental science: people and places.
“I think we need to improve our appreciation of cities because cities are important to us.,” he said. “Cities are the centers of our lives in many ways.”
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