Version:
3/14/12

pictures of the week

thought-bite of the week:

Humboldt in his apartment in Berlin, 1856

Article about Humboldt on his 100th birthday, The New York Times, 1869
click on image to see full-size graphic

"Gold dug out from the ground has, in the people's eyes, a special lure unrelated to the diligent farmer harvesting a fertile land under a gentle climate."
(Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, p. 24)

mini-text of the week:

"'…What an odd experience it was to find ourselves in these vast solitudes with a man who believed he was European, with all the vain pretensions, hereditary prejudices and mistakes of civilization, but whose only roof was a tree.'"

Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, pp. 71 (read more)

(X') = anticipated time in minutes (total=75)

(0001) etc.=item in Humboldt Project document collection

Key to notes added AFTER the class meets:

√ = topic / activity that was adequately dealt with during the class

+ = topic that was started but needs more attention & will be resumed at next / subsequent meeting(s)

- = a topic / activity that was proposed though not begun, but will be taken up later

Struckthrough text like this = a topic / activity that was proposed but not included is not going to be taken up after all

Italic bold green text like this = comments after the meeting

√

(5') Thought-bite of the week: How far are we from being "farmer[s] harvesting a fertile land"? How close to "gold dug from the ground"?

√

(10') A (second-to-)last look at data-gathering: instruments then and now

5) A WWII-era sextant: its developer and basic principles;
6) Celestial navigation with instruments developed by various cultures (Polynesians, Arabs);
7) "How does X work?" - the difference between "how do you make it work" (=operate the gadget) and "how it works" (explain the science behind the gadget); example: how GPS works; more about GPS; step-by-step GPS tutorial;

Main point: instruments Then had many parts and observations were tedious but still more accurate than our everyday measurements Now (degree of latitude mid-19th-C: withing 1/2 mile); instruments now are electronic and gather far more data with far greater accuracy - and we don't have to do much math. Turning point for the sextant: sometime after 1945; AvH would have understood the 1945 sextant - it was mechanically much like the sextants of his time; but the iPhone "Sextant" app would puzzle him (for a while), because it's not mechanical. He would, however, understand the workings of GPS.

Math challenge: how accurate is the "Theodolite" app? But first: How long is 1/10,000 of a degree of latitude? in feet? in meters?

√

(10') Group projects: How close to ready? Where's the Humboldt tie-in? How to package and present as your course assignment? How scored and graded?

Contest asks schoolkids to answer, "What is a flame?"

If time: Value of hands-on learning - a demonstration for math: Why, indeed, is the area of a circle calculated by squaring its radius and multiplying that by pi?

+

(20') Contact of cultures, class of civilizations: The definition of "human" then and now - according to law, philosophy, science, culture, emotion, _____? The "Noble Savage" and the salvaje-orangutan of Jaguars & Eels p. 84. Picturing the Tropics (see Stepan, Nancy Lee, Picturing Tropical Nature, Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001).

+

(15') John Wesley Powell, "beyond the 100th meridian", settlement of the American West, Oregon, and water/land use. Policies of resource allocation, agriculture, mining: Jefferson, Powell, corporate/federal. The three E's of sustainability. What does "interconnectedness" mean to you now? See Stegner, Wallace, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 1953; rpt. Penguin, 1992, and Worster, Donald, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell, Oxford UP, 2001. Basic biographical sources: Wikipedia; PBS "American Experience" (Powell & Bureau of Ethnology); Powell Museum at Lake Powell ("Explore with Us")

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(10') Reading selection ("Climbing the Redwoods") as practice for part of final exam; discussion topics:

1) Does the author deliver the science?
2) Who is/are the audience(s)? How can you tell?
3) How is "interconnectedness" expressed?
4) Is/Are there still more world(s) to explore?
5) How many new words (generic, scientific) did you encounter? Did the author help you out?
6) How does Sillett's world compare to Humboldt's?
7) How does this narrative text compare to Humboldt's text (allowing for the condensed form of Jaguars & Eels)?
8) As you were reading this text, did you look up anything about the topic? - examples: climbing the world's tallest tree (note the climber's name!); climbing huge trees in Washington; how "high climber" loggers top trees; "spring-boarding" a cypress (cousin of redwood) in western Canada; falling old growth redwood in Humboldt County, CA (look for the guy who gets to lie in the notch); Blake's Hitch - history and how to tie.
9) So what is this text actually "about"?
10) If you were applying for a $2500 grant to bring Sillett to PSU, how would you make your pitch to the funders? to the public, assuming you got the money?
11) How much of what Sillett does would you choose to do?
12) What role do numbers /math play in this text?
13) Have you ever seen a redwood tree? clumb one? touched a piece of redwood? bought any?
14) What controversies does the text report? What are your opinions about them?
15) What would you tell Sillett and Preston (the author of the article) about Humboldt?

Stephen Sillett's faculty page at Humboldt State University

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(5') Checkups & Previews:

Scoring guide for Species Description is now ready.

Next meeting: More about land and water use; more about what the "educated citizen" might read; maybe Powell and other American ethnographers; Humboldt's Cosmos; critiquing Humboldt (French Revolution?); how to review for the final exam (REVIEW THE COURSE MEETING PAGES linked from the SCHEDULE page); how to finish up course work.

Job / internship / volunteer opportunities:

Sauvie Island Center , spring (with credit if arranged)