Env 496 Integrative Seminar in Environmental Studies
Spring 2003
Questions of the Course
Following each class meeting, Steve Simpson will list one or more questions related to the class discussion. This questions may, but need not be addressed in a student's journal entries for the week.
January 27
1. Why are you taking this course? If the answer is that it is required for a minor in Environmental Studies, then why are you minoring in Environmental Studies?
2. What is your present environmental action? In answering this question, be honest with yourself (discuss what you do, not what you would like to do). Look at your commitment in two ways. The first is personal lifestyle (e.g., taking a bus to school, eating foods not treated with pesticides). The second is environmental advocacy (e.g., political action, community service, environmental education).
3. What is your present environmental literacy? Take a look at your personal environmental education. Where do you feel competent? What are the gaps in your education? What are you doing, if anything, to fill in those gaps?
January 29
1. Much of the the day's discussion was a criticism of the traditional education that most students experience in grade school, high school, and even college. Still all of us seemed to have come out of it all reasonably well-informed and able to think for ourselves. What about your education, both formal and informal, has been valuable to you? In your opinion, what has education done right?
2. The discussion of the day equated quality environmental education with teaching the skills to think for ourselves. Are the two necessarily linked? Can, for example, environmental education be the rote memorization that several people in class disliked?
February 3
1. Aldo Leopold said that being an environmentalist means living in pain, because an environmentalist sees things that others do not. If an environmentalist writer "sees things," how best can he or she write about them without being pessimistic and/or doomsday?
2. Are farmers more nurturing to the land than other people? In other words, is Berry's exploiter vs. nurturer metaphor accurate, or is it a romantic notion that no longer exists?
3. How important is 1) attachment to the land, 2) a sense of place, or 3)
contact with nature to your own environmentalism?
February 12
1. What is your opinion of Garrett Hardin's "Lifeboat Ethics?" In other words, what is America's responsibility to help feed people in developing countries, knowing that trying to feed the world may negatively impact the health of the soil in America's agricultural areas.
2. What is the correct blend of liberal arts and practical education in a publicly funded university?
3. Is higher education's first priority to help people find productive work or is it to promote citizenry? Or might it be something else?
4. What do think of the notion that the world's great ideas
(Marx, Jefferson, Darwin, Einstein) come from minds not burdened by the
structure of universities and formal higher education?
February 26
1. The Focus on Energy Workshop was interesting in a general sense. Still, in personal terms, so what? How does the workshop relate to you?
2. For me as a teacher, one of the most valuable parts of hearing other people speak is observing the do's and don'ts of conveying a message. What at the workshop was effective? What was not?
March 1
1. Emily asked students in the class to write something about their projects for the UW-L Environmental Studies Newsletter. An excellent journal entry for class would be a 500-1000 word essay describing your service project. It will help Emily, it will promote the Environmental Studies program, and it might help you clarify your own goals and objectives for your project.
2. Joseph Sax, in Mountains Without Handrails, says that environmentalists tend to be a minority of highly educated elitists who think they know what is best for others. He also says that this is nothing to apologize for, and they need to keep pushing their environmental agenda. What is your opinion?
3. The United States may have the finest National Park System in the world. In part, this is because many of the parks were carved out of the wilderness (as opposed to being designated in areas already under human development). Another reason, however, may be that the majority of American park visitors try to treat the parks with proper respect. First of all, do you agree with this statement? And if so, why do you suppose that this is the case?
4. Just about everyone in class had visited a national park, in not as an adult, then as a kid dragged along by his/her parents. Are national parks important to Americans who never visit national parks?
March 5
1. Today class was postponed to allow interested students to attend anti-war gatherings on campus. The correctness of Bush's policy aside, this creates a list of questions in me:
a. Was I right to cancel class? Answer
this in the context that many reasonable people support an attack on Iraq.
What
if the demonstrations had been in
support of the Bush policy? Would I have had an obligation to cancel class
then?
b. Bush says that he considers protests a
right of all Americans, but also irrelevant in his decision-making. I
believe that
the protests are irrelevant to Bush;
so why protest? (this is not meant to be a rhetorical question; what are
good
reasons for protesting?)
c. For those of you who attended the
protests, why did you? For those who chose not to attend, why not?
For those
who attended, what do you think of
those who did not? For those who did not attend, what do you think of
those
who did?
d. On a few occasions, I have heard the
proposed war condemned for its cost ($200 billion plus). I have even heard
it
linked with intuition
increases. What do you think of putting a cost on doing the right thing
(not saying that war is right
in this case)? Is it petty to
personalize the war with your own concerns about tuition?
March 26 - March 31
1. What purpose does a book like Ishmael really serve? The book is fun to read, but is almost a piece of science fiction. Does the book serve to address the ecological disaster that it describes? Why or why not?
2. Define Mother Culture. Define leavers and takers.
3. What do you think of the notion that humans are not only potentially sentient species on the planet, but only the first? If given time to evolve, would other species develop self-awareness, culture, sophisticated societies, etc...?
4. Part of the motivation of Taker society is the desire for short-term security. People want to know that they have food, shelter, companionship not only for the next few days, but for the foreseeable future. How much of this are you willing to give up in order to be kinder to the non-human world?
5. What would you describe as acts that consistent with a leaver society?
6. Sometimes when I read Ishmael, think that is it simply an interesting way to say that humanity needs to enhance, rather than destroy, diversity. Is that the message of Ishmael in a nutshell?
7. To some extent, Ishmael is saying that we need to live bioregionally because there are no global answers, no single right way to live. Instead of doing what is right, people need to do what is reasonable for the place and time. What truths do you hold to be true and are unwilling to give up? Are these truths regional or universal?
8. Is humanity tied to the rules of nature? In particular, are humans, by trying to feed the world, actually destroying it through overpopulation of a particular species?
Black River State Forest Trip
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8. Realistically, has this trip made a difference?
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Email me at simpson.stev@mail.uwlax.edu
Last modified 1/10/03.