Purpose of the paper:

This paper should examine a single environmental problem using several different perspectives to determine the "structure" of what is known about it. You should identify a problem for which multiple views or perspectives is helpful in understanding the potential solutions. You paper should describe the problem, and try to collect information from several perspectives that you describe, and then compare the information.

Review the lecture notes on structure.

The different perspectives you can use are:

• barriers (need more information, apply existing technology, change peoples' values)
• world views (cornucopian, industrial ecologist, commited environmentalist, deep ecologist)
• the type of problem (simple, information, common pool, wicked)

I also presented several viewers that you might use:

• scale
• system (stocks and flow)
• network (connections)
• games

For example, if the problem you were examining was the loss of forests you could find some information about the systems approach and find something about how people account for the non-commercial values of the forest. You will have to be creative to find these different views.

This paper is worth 15 points total.

Depending on how you write the paper you may get your 15 points from different combinations of assets. You don't have to get all the points from anyone category to get 15 points, but you can't get more than 15 points.

Expected contents and grading rubric (possible points):

PAPER'S ASSETS	POINTS
description of a problem that relates to environment directly	2
selection of three approaches and description of those views	4
comparison of the three views	3
description of the "structure" - defining this for yourself	4
other references from reputable sources*	2
general flow of the paper - with two threads this can be difficult	2
attributions in text and references at the end **	1
3 pages or less, and legible in both text and layout	1
absent spelling or grammatical errors	2
handed in at the beginning of class - i.e. on time	2

 

* Note on what is "reputable". Reputable means that the source has a reputation that can be assessed. "Reputable" carries that connotation that it is a good reputation (in contrast to disreputable). Web pages with unknown origin, no listed authors, or date have maybe correct but there is no way to check the source. These should not be used.

**Note on attribution and references. All quotes or references to a text should be attributed in the text in the format (author year). The references at the end should be in the same format as used in the ESR330-bibiolography. Web citations should be attributed in the text by the author and date of publication as above and in the references at the end of the paper should include the Author, date, title of the article, organization or title of on-line journal, URL and date accessed.