HIST 124 - Environmental History
Spring 2009
Catalog Description: An
introduction to environmental
history, in the United States and globally, with an emphasis on
changing attitudes toward the environment and the interaction between
science and public policy.
Professor: Dr.
Pamela Mack
Objectives: Students who
successfully complete this
course will be able to:
- Show how attitudes toward the
environment
have changed
over time
- Explain the historical background of
environmental
issues
- Analyze the philosophical assumptions
held
by the
participants in
environment controversies
- Argue effectively for their own
position
on a recent
environmental
issue
Evaluation:
two in-class
exams
30%
quizzes
10%
discussion
board
10%
participation
credits
10%
argument paper
25%
final
exam
25%
This adds up to 110 points. I will automatically drop the
quizzes, the discussion board, or the participation credits, whichever
is lowest. You must take the quizzes (though you can then drop
your
results if you wish), but you may if you wish simply skip either the
discussion board or the participation credits. However, your
grade will benefit if you do all the types of assignments and drop the
group you
did worst on. If you do all the assignments another alternative
is that you may, by request, count all three 10 point assignments
and reduce the value of some other assignment by 10 points, for
example, your argument paper could count 15% instead of 25%.
Attendance policy: 5
absences
allowed without penalty, 3 points off the final grade for the course
for each additional absence. Excuses will be accepted only for
major
problems; students are expected to use their allowed absences wisely to
cover special activities, minor illnesses, and car problems. When an
excused absence is requested the absence must be documented and beyond
the student's control. Note that filling out the online student
notification of absence form is not enough to get an absence excused;
you must also bring documentation to class. Please speak to the
professor if you have
special circumstances affecting your attendance. Lateness will be
dealt with in the following way: no penalty for up to five minutes, one
half absence after 5 minutes. Students who converse or use
computers or cell phones inappropriately (see below) during class will
receive emailed warnings--every three warnings will be counted as one
absence. There will also be a one half
absence penalty for leaving early, unless you. speak to the professor
in advance and have a good reason. If the professor or a
substitute does
not
arrive within 10 minutes of the scheduled starting time of the class
students may leave.
Fairly detailed lecture notes for this class will be posted on the web
(you will access them when they are posted by clicking on the lecture
title in the schedule
below).
Hopefully, you will find that this allows you to listen and think about
the material presented in class rather than struggling to write down
the details. However, think about whether you are a person who
doesn't
remember something unless you write it down; you may decide that you
need to take detailed notes yourself rather than simply annotate the
notes posted on the web. When you are listening to lectures
concentrate on the ideas and connections presented; this course is not
about learning a set of facts but about learning how to analyze the
relationship between the environment and society.
Blackboard discussion questions
will be posted weekly on the Blackboard learning system. You must
go
to the discussion board for your group to find the questions
(you will be assigned to one of four groups during the first full week
of classes). This is a required assignment for the course, rather
like
the journals some other courses assign, and your responses will be
graded. The goal of the
Blackboard
discussion is to allow more discussion of the reading and the lectures
than is possible in class. You can read comments left by others and add
your own for everyone to read. I will place a new discussion topic on
the system each week. You will have two weeks to respond to post to
each topic; messages posted after the closing deadline for that topic
will get a zero.
Your participation in this system will be graded on the basis both of
quality and quantity. Contributions to the internet discussion should
be thoughtful comments on the reading and/or the professor's
notes and/or the comments of other students, usually one or two
paragraphs long (150-400 words). They must be your own
work--cutting and pasting from other sources is cheating. To get
an A you need to say
something new and worthwhile about the question (not just repeat what
other students have said). Personal experience is appropriate and
grammar and spelling are not important so long as your point is
clear. Blackboard discussion grades will available on Blackboard
before the middle of the term so that you can see how you are doing.
Your grade for the Blackboard discussion board will be the average of
your 10 highest grades for individual topics (there will be at least 12
topics). You will get only one grade per topic, but if you write
more than one post on a topic all your posts will be taken into account
in deciding your grade for the topic. Posts after the deadline
for that topic will receive no credit.
Quizzes will
mostly be multiple choice tests
based
on the reading. They will be posted on Blackboard Wed. at the end
of class and are
due by 11 am on Friday. Quizzes
are found
by going into Blackboard and clicking on assignments and then on
quizzes. Multiple choice quizzes will
be 10 questions each. I want you to have plenty of time but I do
want people to do the reading before taking the quiz, so you have one
hour to do the quiz (which should take most people about 10
minutes).
Your grade will be lowered if you go over one hour. Your lowest quiz
grade will be
dropped if you do all 11.
Participation credits: You can earn these
credits in several
different ways, all of which will be listed in the assignments section
of Blackboard under participation credits. You can attend a
lecture approved by the
professor (these will be listed in the syllabus as the semester goes
along), turn in a write-up of the lecture, and get up to 2 points
credit for
each lecture write-up. You can
rent and view up a film listed under participation credits on
Blackboard, write a critique of the film, and get
up to 2
points credit for each one. You may participate
particularly actively in class discussion on a regular
basis. You can
do a reading project, as assigned by
the professor, and turn in a write up for up to two points. These
assignments will all be graded good/poor/no credit for 2, 1 or 0
points. You may earn up to a total
of 10 points from any combination of these activities.
Two in-class tests will be
administered Feb. 11 and Mar. 25. The final exam is scheduled for
at 8 am. Both the
in-class
tests and the final will be essay tests and open books and notes will
be permitted. They may be written either on your laptop or on
paper.
On the in-class tests you will write one essay of 500 to 1000 words
from a choice of two questions. There is advice on taking this
kind of
test at:
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/PamMack/essayexams.html.
Makeup exams will be available only for students who can document that
they missed the test for reasons beyond their control. In other
cases
there will be a mechanism to get partial credit.
The argument paper will consist
of a paper of about 4 pages that will take a stand on a controversial
issue. Topic assignments will be posted at Argument
paper assignment.
The higher grades will go to papers that exhibit logical thinking, an
analytical framework, specific evidence, the ability to inform and
communicate, sound organization, and a concise and coherent argument.
In this paper the premium will go to those that make a persuasive
argument. This paper is due April 8. Papers must be both handed
in as a
paper
copy and also submitted via Blackboard to the Turnitin plagiarism
detection system. (This system does keep a copy of your paper--if
you
have a problem with that please speak to the professor.) Late
papers
will be penalized two points if turned in after the end of class on the
day due and an additional two points for each calendar day late.
Very
late
papers will be penalized no lower than a 65 if the paper merits at
least a 75.
Academic
Integrity: As
members
of the Clemson University community, we have inherited Thomas Green
Clemson's
vision of this
institution as a "high
seminary of
learning."
Fundamental to this vision is a mutual commitment to truthfulness,
honor, and responsibility, without which we cannot earn the trust and
respect of others. Furthermore, we recognize that academic
dishonesty
detracts from the value of a Clemson degree. Therefore, we shall
not
tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing in any form. This includes
representing someone else's work as your own or handing in the same
paper to two different courses without permission of the
instructors. Be careful to avoid plagiarism--text you take from a
web site, from a book, or from the online class notes must be either
quoted with the source given or restated almost
entirely in your own words, with the source given.
Laptops and other technology:
Turn off
sound in class or group situations. The fundamental rule for
laptops in this course is that you may use your laptop in
class
only for tasks directly related to this course. In
addition to
tasks the professor asks you to do on your laptop you may use it to
take notes, to view the course notes, or to browse to web sites related
to the material being discussed in class. Do not email, instant
message, chat, do homework, download music, look at Facebook, or play
games
during class. Students using their computers for non-class
related
purposes will receive a warning by email after class. Every three
warnings will count as one absence. The same penalty will be
applied to students who carry on conversations with other students,
who text on their cell phones, or who listen to headphones.
Portfolio: This course meets
the Social Science and STS general education requirements, and so you
should be putting essays that you write for this course in your general
education portfolio. Please put the following documents in the
following sections of your portfolio:
Social and Cross-Cultural Awareness:
Section
1--methodologies: write a
reflection here about the different approaches of the three different
books (one of the discussion board assignments will probably cover this)
Section 2--causes and consequences:
put your argument paper here
Mathematical, Scientific, and Technological Literacy
Section
5--sci. and tech. in
society: put here one of your exam essays that you feel best
reflects
your understanding of the role of science and technology in society.
Textbooks:
Ecological Imperialism: The
Biological
Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, by Alfred W. Crosby (1993)
Wilderness and the American Mind,
by Roderick Nash (4th edition 2001)
The Greening of a Nation?
Environmentalism in the United States since 1945, by Hal
K. Rothman.
Course
Schedule:
Jan.
7
course introduction
9 environmental
history, definitions
12 History
and ecology, read Crosby ch. 1 (prologue)
14 Original
nature, read Crosby ch. 2
14 PC: Patrick McMillan lecture, "Failure to Communicate,"
7:30 pm, Brooks Theatre
16
Expansion
begins, read Crosby ch. 3, quiz 1 (survey)
due by 11 am
19 Martin
Luther King holiday
21 Atlantic
islands, read Crosby ch. 4,
23 Out
to Sea, Crosby ch.
5, quiz
2 (Crosby 1-4) due by 11 am
26 PC: Mark Ray Lecture,
"Spread of Cooperative Conservation," 10 am Strom Thurmond Inst.
Auditorium
26
Failed
colonies, Crosby ch. 6, bb 1 & 2 due by
11 am
28 Weeds,
Crosby ch. 7, quiz 3 posted after class
30 Animals,
Crosby ch. 8, quiz
3 (Crosby 5-7) due by
11 am
Feb.
2 disease,
Crosby ch. 9, New
Zealand, Crosby ch. 10, bb3 due by 11 am
4 Global
warming (slides)
(class event for Clemson
Teach in)
4 PC: "100 Days for the Environment" webcast and
discussion, 6:30-8 pm Tillman Auditorium.
6 Explanations,
Crosby ch. 11, quiz 4 (Crosby 8-10) due by 11 am
9 Conclusions,
Crosby
ch. 12, bb4 due by 11 am
11 In-class exam
13
Ideas
about
wilderness, Nash Introduction and prologue
13 PC: Edward Larson lecture "A Brief History of the
Evolution Teaching Dispute," 6-7 pm Hardin 100
14
PC: Jerry Waldvogel lecture "The Role of Higher Education in the
Evolution-Religion Controversy," 6:15 pm Hardin 100
16 Old
world ideas, Nash chs. 1
and 2, bb5 due by 11 am
18 Romantics,
Nash ch. 3, first set
of pcs due
20 Thoreau,
Nash ch. 5, quiz 5 (Nash introduction-3) due by
11 am
23 Discovery
of American Scenery, Nash ch.
4, bb6 due by 11 am
23 PC: Shane Hamilton
lecture: "Supermarkets and the Idea of Technological Progress," 4 pm,
Strom Thurmond Institute
25 Early
Preservation, Nash ch. 6; Wilderness
Preserved, Nash ch. 7, optional
rewrite due
27 Muir,
Nash ch. 8 , quiz 6 (Nash 4-6) due by 11 am
Mar.
2 Wilderness
as a Fad, Hetch
Hetchy, Nash ch. 9-10, bb7 due
by 11 am
4
Aldo
Leopold, Nash ch. 11
6 Permanent
Preservation,
Nash ch. 12, quiz 7 (Nash 7-11) by 11 am
9 Philosophies,
Nash ch. 13, bb8 due by 11 am
9 PC: lecture on "How Facts
Change Values (and Vice Versa)," 5 pm, Strom Thurmond Institute
Auditorium
10 PC: lecture on "Energy Policy and the Fight for the
Future," 7-8 pm 364 Sirrine
11 Alaska,
Nash ch. 14, Irony
of Victory, Nash
ch. 15, second set of pcs due
13 International
issues, Nash ch. 16
16-20 Spring
Break
23 Review,
Nash epilogue
25 in-class
exam, bb9
due by 11 am
27 read
Rothman
introduction
30 read
Rothman
ch. 1, bb10 due by 11 am
Apr.
1
Rothman
ch.
2 and U.S.
Government structure pages 3-33
3 film,
quiz 8 (Rothman intro-2) by 11 am
6 Rothman
ch. 3, Forest
management case
study,
bb11 due by 11 am
8 Rothman
ch. 4, argument
paper due
10 Rothman
ch.
5, quiz 9 (Rothman 3-4) due by 11 am
10 PC: Robert Ford on Water
Resources, 2-3 pm Strom Thurmond Institute Auditorium.
13 Rothman
ch. 6, Oconee
Nuclear case study, bb
12 due by 11 am
15 Rothman
ch.
7
16 PC: Climate Change discussion, 7:30 pm Strom Thurmond
Institute Auditorium
17 Rothman
ch.
8, quiz 10 (Rothman 5-7) by 5 pm
20 Goals,
last
day to hand in all pcs not due earlier (except the one today, which is
due 4/24)
20 PC: Pacholczyk on Ethics
of Stem Cells and Cloning, 7 pm, Strom Thurmond Institute Auditorium
22 Conclusion:
Environmental Politics,
24 Review,
quiz 11 (survey) due
Apr. 28 Final Exam
:
8:00
am - 10:30 am, Hardin 100