The Virtual Peace Garden

This website started out (Fall 2008) as a course management site for English 758, Topics in Rhetoric and Writing, at North Dakota State University. The topic was "War and Peace in the Global Village: Rhetorical Acts Post 9/11" and students read about and created content relevant to theme, which also means they were enacting the theme.

One goal of the course was for students to add sufficiently high quality content that the site might live on past the semester. The students might continue to blog and share work here; a larger community might develop.

A second goal of the course was to set up a virtual peace garden in Second Life. We did not accomplish that goal within the parameters of the class, but the MEmorials the students designed, and specifically their peripherals, gave me material for an Instructional Development Grant, which in turn has enabled me to start building the Virtual Peace Garden of Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching%2015/210/150/22

Why a VPG? North Dakota is the Peace Garden State; the International Peace Garden is a tranquil spot on the Canadian US Border that people should visit, although it is not an easy spot to get to. My hope is that interaction with the Virtual Peace Garden might encourage others to make a trip to the real thing, and bring back (or deliver) a message of peace through Second Life, this site, or other venues.

Kevin Brooks
Site Curator
Updated March 6, 2009.