The Environment - a word problem. Students use the web for learning. Paul Schmidt and Paul Brickel at Turtle Rescue. Ferry Boat

Environment and Society (3 Cr.), 2006

PLEASE PRINT this page and use as you check list on class progress

Because we have seen so many dramatic disasters recently - earthquakes, hurricanes, the Indian Ocean tsunami, volcanic eruptions, and deadly droughts in Africa and other places - we should consider making these events "learning moments". This semester I hope we can all focus on these disasters and all the social, human, economic, scientific, and political (policy) implications of these events.

Watch a great video demo of hurricane prediction - Kind of frightening - Hurricane Ivan!.

 

Syllabus Order of Contents

 

                                     1.  Course Description  

                                     2.   Course Outline and Objectives

                                     3.   Evaluation

                                     4.   Grading Rubrics

 

Click here for a brief audio message Dr. Steffen Schmidt conducting research on the enironment in Bequia, St. Vincent and the Grenadine.

Dr. Schmidt has a BA from Rollins College and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York. He also studied in Colombia, South America, in Switzerland, and Nice, on the French Riviera. He is the author of 7 books and over 100 scholarly articles. Research on environmental education is an integral part of Schmidt's professional activity. He has developed extensive instructional material including lesson plans and digital audio and video for use in classrooms. He is also an Associate of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the recipient of six major teaching awards including an award as a pioneer in digital learning. His articlesand chapters on distance learning are widely distributed and have received praise from educators. He is a commentator and analyst for CNN en Espanol and other major media.

The syllabus was developed by Jane Dougan, S. Paul Schmidt, and Dr. Steffen Schmidt.  Dr. Schmidt wishes to thank SAS Consulting for permission to use copyrighted material for this class. He is also grateful to Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center for extensive financial support for innovative teaching experiments that are embedded in this maetrial. Also thanks to Iowa State University especially to Loren Porter, Jason Kobes, Martha Pope, Scott Kovach, and Jamie Swift who were a terrific bunch of high-energy college students involved in the digital media development.

 

Course Description:

 

Environment and Society is a graduate level course that provides opportunities for students to evaluate the historical and modern impacts of human societies on their environment.

 

Humans, as do all living organisms, depend on the natural world for vital nutrients, water and shelter. All living organisms adapt to and often also change the environments in which they live. Humans have a greater capacity to alter their environment than other organisms. As modern societies become increasingly urbanized, an essential understanding of our interconnectedness with nature is all too often replaced by the belief that food comes from the grocery store. As population density grows around the world more pressure is put on the land, air, and water resources.

 

The syllabus of this course has been designed as learner-centered, offering the student the flexibility to analyze and synthesize the topics presented within a personal context.

 

This course was designed to conform to the Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence. These guidelines were developed to “… provide recommendations for selecting, evaluating, and producing quality environmental education lesson plans, curricula, and other instructional materials… “ by the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education of the North American Association for Environmental Education.

 

 

Evaluation:

 

Course requirements include weekly online asynchronous (any time 24-7) unit discussion, a midterm examination, and three short lesson plans that you will develop and that are written with the real classroom in which you expect to teach in mind. These lesson plans should be based on issues in environment and society discussed in the course and should be grounded in active learning based pedagogy.  These lesson plans will be shared with the other students and, with your agreement, will be posted on the web site for use by other teachers.  Please feel free to share exciting material you have found outside the class assignments!

 

Asynchronous discussions           20% Due dates: one each week.

Midterm examination                   20% Date this test is due:

Lesson plans (3 @ 20%)             60% Due Dates; First: November 1 Second: November 15 Third: December 1

NOTE- 10% will be taken off for each late assignment.  

Lesson Plans: Excellent lesson plan models with active learning and creative activities can be found at the Learning Network. Choose the age group that interests you. Click on "Science" or do a general search for topics. I am interested in you looking at the methodology and format used in these leson plans. They are very complex and nicely done. Try to do each lesson plan on a difffernt topic using the categories into which the weeks of this class are divided (Ecomics and Environment, Environment and Conflict, Population and Economics,etc.).

 

A wonderful resource for us is Earthscape at Columbia University - http://www.earthscape.org/. "Columbia Earthscape is a comprehensive aggregation of resources in the Earth and Environmental Sciences. The four sections of the compass give you - the teacher, student, scientist, or decision-maker - instant access to the tools you need to understand our planet." The October 2005 issue is on natural disasters and is a wonderful tool given all the earthquakes, tsunami's, and hurricanes that have been ocurring.

Course Outline and Unit Objectives:

Brief Background - The last time we taught this class the participants suggested that we provide some basic background framework for environmentalism. We hope that you find the following new material (2006) useful.

Earth - What Has Happened Before? The Major Extinctions. (Download to your computer)

Basic Environmental History- Past 150 Years. - (Download to your computer)

 

World Ranking of Nations by Environmental Quality. Just Released. (Download to your computer)

 Week 1 – Economics

Case Study- China - "China already uses more grain, meat, steel and coal than the United States. And experts say that by 2031, China will need more oil than the world produces. Can the earth handle China's increasing appetite for natural resources?" Click here for audio - you need Real or Windows Player.

 

Objectives:

 

Upon completion of this week, you will:

1.       understand the basic concepts of economics

2.       relate the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ to modern scenarios

3.       distinguish between ‘traditional’ economics and Natural Resource economics

4.       demonstrate a comprehension of sustainable development

 

Resources:

            1. http://www.rff.org/disc_papers/PDF_files/9829.pdf How do economists really think

                about the environment?

            2. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Environmental_economics.html Basic environmental economic education concepts. Click around this site. I think it's one of the really useful sites for learning!

            3. Reading: Harding, Garrett (1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science 162: 1243-1248. (Link on Homepage in WebCT)

            4. Reading: Freeny, David et al (1990) The tragedy of the commons: Twenty-two years later. Human Ecology 18:1-1 (Link on Homapage in WebCT)

 

 Week 2 – Environment and Conflict 

 

Objectives:

 

Upon completion of this week, you will:

1.       review the relationship between conflict and natural resources

2.       compare and contrast historical and modern environmental impacts of conflict

3.       demonstrate a comprehension of the geography of war

 

Resources:

1. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/587.html  Conflict and Natural Resources: a number of articles offering diverse perspectives.

            2. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/591.html  Oil and National Security

            3. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/588.html  Environmental Impacts

            4. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/589.html  Geography of War

 

 Week 2 – Environment and Conflict  (Material for this week is locally linked here. Use this only if the direct URL's above do not work!)

 

 Week 3 – Environment and Health

 

Objectives:

 

Upon completion of this week, you will:

1.       compare and contrast historical and modern threats to human health within an environmental context

2.       differentiate between toxicology and ecotoxicology

3.       analyze risk assessment from a personal, local, regional and global perspective and relate these concerns to the topic of environmental racism (NIMBY)

 

Resources:

            1. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/170.html  Introduction to Environmental Health and Related Links

            2. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/419.html  Russia's Health Crisis

 

 Week 3 – Environment and Health (Material for this week is locally linked here. Use this only if the direct URL's above do not work!)

 

Week 4 – Population Dynamics

 

Objectives:

 

Upon completion of this week, you will:

1.       demonstrate a comprehension of exponential growth

2.       relate current trends in population growth (aging of the global population, demographic transitions) to concepts of sustainability

3.       evaluate ‘our’ position in the web of life as it relates to the Laws of Nature

 

Resources:

            1. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/30.html  Population Dynamics

            2. http://www.populationconnection.org/ Formerly Zero Population Growth

            3. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/417.html Aging of the Global Population

 

Week 4 – Population Dynamics (Material for this week is locally linked here. Use this only if the direct URL's above do not work!)

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 Week 5 – Environmental Impact Analysis / Green Design

Click here to view the one hour case study - Katrina the storm- Government and the environment. The Storm," an hour-long FRONTLINE investigation, examines how and why government at every level -- local, state and federal -- was unprepared, uncoordinated and overwhelmed in dealing with the Hurricane Katrina disaster that devastated the Gulf Coast in the late summer of 2005. So hoe much environmental design is possible when our institutions are so non responsive?

 

Objectives:

 

Upon completion of this week, you will:

1.       identify the source/s of controversy surrounding the Environmental Impact Statement as a useful instrument of assessment

2.       demonstrate a knowledge of Green Design concepts by applying your creative problem-solving skills to find a practical solution to a modern-day design flaw

 

Resources:

            1. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/18.html  Environmental Impact Analysis

            2. http://ceq.eh.doe.gov/nepa/regs/nepa/nepaeqia.htm  National Environmental Policy Act

            3. http://ceq.eh.doe.gov/nepa/nepanet.htm  Council for Environmental Quality

            4. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/23.html  Green Design

            5. http://www.att.com/ehs/ind_ecology/articles/  Articles by Dr. Braden R. Allenby

 

Week 5 – Environmental Impact Analysis / Green Design (Material for this week is locally linked here. Use this only if the direct URL's above do not work!)

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 Week 6 Waste Management

 

Objectives:

 

Upon completion of this week, you will:

1.       demonstrate a comprehension of the different categories of waste generated by modern societies

2.       compare and contrast waste management strategies with the Law of Conservation of Matter and nutrient cycles

3.       synthesize major ideas presented in this course and relate them to the current problems of waste management

4.       discuss how to eliminate ‘waste’…both figuratively and literally.  

 

Resources:

            1. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/41.html Waste Management

            2. http://www.epa.gov/superfund/  EPA Superfund page

            3. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/83.html  Recycling

4.       http://www.kab.org/  Keep America Beautiful

5.       Susan Strasser. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash.  New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1999. This is a fascinating history of how American attitudes towards trash have changed since the 18th century. Conspicuous consumption and waste were once used to display wealth, while only the poor and the thrifty recycled.

 

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Hot Topic - Optional Discussion. There is still a very controveted debate going on about global warming, is there any, if there is was it caused by human activity or is some of it cyclical, are the hurricanes caused by human made global warming, etc. This is very, VERY important as a topic in which to engage students. There is still no definitive science and students MUST understand that some issues are very complex even in science.

 

 Controversies and Critiques in Environmental Debates.

 

In this section we have provided a number of discussions that form a critique of environmental science, the critique of environmentalism, and some points regarding environmental policy. This material highlights the on-going tensions and ideological differences between those who are “settled” environmentalists and those who, for a variety of reasons, disagree with the mainstream of environmental education and science.

 

1. The Bjorn Lomborg debate

a.       The British Broadcasting Corporation - Profile of Bjorn Lomborg

b.       The Ecologist - refutation of Bjorn Lomborg

c.       Lomberg article in Ecologist.pdf

2.      Ten Environmentalist Myths - EcoWorld

3.       Capitalist Magazine- Environmental Myth Report

4.       The Post Human Condition (cloning and genetic engineering)

 

Controversies and Critiques in Environmental Debates (Material for this week is locally linked here. Use this only if the direct URL's above do not work!)

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Congratulations on completing the class!

Make sure you've done the discussions, midterm test, and submitted your lesson plans.