Announcements:

For all emails - put ESR330 in the subject line.

please refer to the calendar for the schedule of class, readings and timing of some special assignments

please look through these and have questions on the assignments

See the calendar for the new late work policy.

 

Purpose of the course:

There is a body of knowledge that the student should be familiar with inorder to be considered environmentally literate. Some of this knowledge comes from the literature (books and articles) and some knowledge comes from direct experience. The study of environmental issues works from real problems, across all scales ranging from global climate change to an individual's impact from daily activities. This broad range of topics and scales requires the student to use multiple modes of learning. This course will explore three major threads, each with its own activities:

 

thread one: What can be learned from reading the literature? What background knowledge is assumed of a "literate" environmental student?

thread two: What is the "structure" of information on the environment and how can you probe environmental and ecological information?

thread three: What do you have to learn from the environment through personal experience?

See below for listing of lectues that address these threads:

 

Format:

Each week will be made up of three different types of activities to address the main threads:

discussing the literature reading assignment

lectures and discussion of ecological rationality and structure of information on the environment

exploring experiential knowledge with some short "walk abouts"

Assignments:

More information will be provided later on the assignments and grading.

Short written papers based on the reading as conversation starters. These will be done in class. (Six at 5 points each)

2 or 3 page paper critiquing a classic text. (15 points)

2 or 3 page paper on the importance of using multiple perspectives or approaches to addressing an environmental problem (15 points)

Exploring an example of something that can be learned from the environment (15 points).

Final paper, synthesis of reading, ecological rationality, experiential learning as it pertains to adaptive management of an environmental problem. Topic choice (5 points), outline (10 points), short presentation in class (10), final paper (10 points).

 

Required reading:

Speth, J. G. (2008). The Bridge at the edge of the world: Capitalism, the environment, and crossing from crisis to sustainability. New Haven, Conneticutt, Yale University Press.

Bryan G. Norton "Sustainability" The University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0-226-59521-8

"Classics":Choose one of these to read.

1. Leopold, "Sand County Almanac"
2. Schumacher, "Small is Beautiful"
3. Wilson, "Biophilia"
4. Bateson, "Mind and Nature"
5. Thoreau, "Walden"
6. Tuan, "Topophilia"
   
   

Learning Objectives

• Students will be familiar with some of the classical papers on the environment. 
• Students will be able to critique portions of the book from the point of view of how science can contribute to understanding the environment.
• Students will be able identify how arguments are framed in the environmental literature.
• Student will be able to appreciate the historical aspects of environmental arguments and to put the ideas of sustainability, pragmatism, and adaptive management into the context of larger philosophical questions.
• Students will appreciate the roles of primary experience and academic inquiry.
• Students will be able to make persuasive statements on both sides of an environmental debate.

Three Threads

	Topic	lecture number a=first half b=second half
What people are writing, saying, and discussing
	covered in all the lectures about Speth, Norton and the Classics
The structure of information about the environment
	description, storage and retrieval	4 section 3
	probing the structure with heuristics (heuristic examples, multiple viewers)	6 section 3
	world views that match or don't match actual structure	7 section 2
The importance of experience
	in education (Louv, Laurillard)	4 - section 4
	for perception and problem solving (Reed, Gibson, Atran and Medin, Hutchins)	4 - section 5
	Aesthetics and Attachment (beauty, love, Tuan, Global Mourning)	7 - section 3
	constructing experiences (etudes, improvisation)

 

Bibilography