International Jesuit Ecology Project

In 2010, former Loyola University Chicago president Father Michael Garanzini, S.J., attended an international meeting of Jesuit university presidents in Mexico City. Discussions at the meeting inspired Father Garanzini to propose the creation of an interdisciplinary environmental science textbook. He brought the idea to Nancy Tuchman, PhD, current dean of Loyola’s School of Environmental Sustainability, and Michael Schuck, PhD, professor of theology and environmental studies. The following year, Dean Tuchman was part of a team that created the Jesuit document “Healing a Broken World,” a special report that challenged Jesuits to address environmental problems through a spiritual perspective. This call to action further strengthened Father Garanzini’s interest in the online textbook idea.  

In 2012 and again in 2013, Dean Tuchman and Professor Schuck gathered an international team of scientists, theologians, ethicists, and other experts and activists to brainstorm and develop the online textbook. They called their initiative the ‘International Jesuit Ecology Project’ (IJEP). As work matured, they titled their unique resource Healing Earth. This free online textbook in environmental science incorporated the Ignatian pedagogy of ‘seeing,’ ‘judging,’ reflecting,’ and ‘acting’ across six chapters—biodiversity, energy, natural resources, water, food, and global climate change. The group had realized Father Garanzini’s idea—a living textbook on the environmental challenges facing humanity that is scientifically accurate, spiritually rooted, morally focused, and action-oriented. 

IJEP continues to operate as an ongoing incubator for educational ideas promoting environmental and social justice. The group continues to enhance Healing Earth and related educational resources, emphasizing an ‘integral ecology pedagogy’ that combines environmental science, ethics, spirituality, and action. 

Healing Earth is an online textbook that addresses six critical contemporary environmental challenges: biodiversity, natural resources, energy, food, water, and climate change. Healing Earth raises scientific awareness, probes the ethical implications of our environmental crises, challenges students to think deeply about the meaning of the natural world in our lives, and calls all of us to action that heals the Earth. The emphasis on ethics and spirituality and its accessible, free online format set Healing Earth apart from other environmental science textbooks.

Since its publication, Healing Earth has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and French and has received prestigious awards. In 2017, two years after Pope Francis’ Laudato Sí encyclical was published, the Healing Earth team received the Expanded Reason Award from the Joseph Ratzinger-Pope Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation and the University Francisco de Vitoria in Spain. The Expanded Reason Award honors people who challenge the typical one-dimensional form of scholarship by integrating multiple perspectives and angles on an issue, just as Healing Earth approaches environmental problems through a scientific, ethical, and spiritual perspective. 

Join our Healing Earth community. 

The Laudato Si’ Action Platform is an international project organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development to serve as a space for institutions, communities, and families to learn and grow in a journey towards full sustainability in the holistic spirit of integral ecology. The Laudato Si’ Action Platform empowers the universal Church and all people of goodwill to respond to Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s encyclical on caring for our shared home. 

University Pathways invites universities from all over the world to join in a seven-year journey and respond to seven main goals: cry of the Earth, cry of the poor, ecological economics, adoption of a sustainable lifestyle, ecological education, ecological spirituality, and community resilience and empowerment. University Pathways promotes collaboration and partnership while inviting universities to commit to the seven-year journey and create a plan that advances each of Pope Francis’s seven Laudato Si’ goals. Healing Earth addresses the fifth goal, of the Laudato Si’ Plan, ecological education. 

Please visit the links provided for more information on how to join the Laudato Si’ Action Platform or University Pathways. 

The THEA Institute is a summer college preparatory program at Loyola University Chicago. It offers high school students the opportunity to learn about environmental justice and explore their spirituality while spending a week living at one of the greenest campuses in the nation. 

Students learn from theologians, humanists, activists, and scientists utilizing Healing Earth as the primary framework for the curriculum. The program seeks to promote leadership and cultivate a new generation of pioneers who will lead integrated lives of faith and justice, empowering them to respond to contemporary social and ecological challenges. The summer institute offers a holistic and diverse experience that invites students to discover and discern their gifts and vocation while fostering Ignatian values of love for others, creativity, and prayer. 

Learn more here. 

The Global Environmental Citizenship Course is a unique academic experience that unites students from all over the globe to participate in a year-long course about local and global impacts of biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and climate change. Organized and directed by the International Association of Jesuit Universities, this course is one of three pillars of the Magis Exchange Program. The Magis Exchange Program invites students from participating universities to experience a semester-long exchange, a service-learning project, and a course on global environmental citizenship. This program aims to bridge cultures, build cohorts, form global citizens, and promote the Ignatian ideal of being “people for others.” 

Learn more here and find out how your university can participate in the Magis Exchange Program and the Global Environmental Citizenship Course.

The home of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Presentation Sisters) sits on a 125-acre campus in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The members of this faith community are working on land restoration and environmental stewardship as part of their integral ecology ministry. Their efforts are in response to Laudato Si, an encyclical written by Pope Francis, calling on us to care for creation and our brothers and sisters in need. The restoration project’s goal is to discern how to protect the land so that it can best serve the Presentation Mission in the future.

In 2022, the sisters invited Professor Michael Schuck and Dean Nancy Tuchman to help them use Healing Earth to help them incorporate the concept of integral ecology into their land restoration project. The Healing Earth team hosted three webinars that discussed biodiversity, water, and climate change challenges from an interdisciplinary lens. Now, the team is working with the local community to create an adult education presentation about the value of integral ecology. This project involves the land restorers in Aberdeen and students from Presentation College, also located on the restoration site.

Learn more here.