Transcript L01 Sust 09-10 winter - News Home

Sustainability
Freshman Inquiry
Jan. 4, 2010
Jeff Fletcher
Welcome Back!
• You survived the first quarter of your freshman year ….
Congratulations !
• As we did in our first quarter, make the most of your time
here at PSU.
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Have an open mind.
Get to know people different from yourself.
Push yourself to try new things.
Be filled with goodwill, interpret other’s actions in the same light.
Have a positive attitude, look for opportunities not barriers.
• What is one thing you did during the break that you
would like to share? (Doesn’t have to be Sustainability
related.)
First Some Old Business
• Things that worked and things to improve
on this term (feedback from Fall term
evaluations)
• Grades from last term
– distribution, extra points added in, generous
on attendance
• Feedback on group presentations
– While groups meet
• Share HW 0 experiences
Retrospective 1
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Good things from last quarter
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Everyone is back!
Detailed assignment handouts +/Use of video
Group discussions
Improved critical reading skills
Improved writing skills
Improved understanding of complex issues
Good progress on UNST learning goals
Powerpoint/notes +/Good LLC Activities (Fieldtrip! Movie Night)
Mentor sessions helpful
Retrospective 2
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Things to be improved from last quarter
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Class participation (instructor, students)
Develop speaking skills & active class participation
Time management—readings and assignments on time
Time management help
Reading assignment handouts more carefully
More personal interest in student learning
Clearer expectations on assignments, more helpful
feedback, more hands-on
Diversity awareness (race, class, gender, sexual orientation,
ethnicity)
More sharing of different backgrounds
Better integration with mentor session
Some Proposed Changes
– Better facilitation of involvement of silent majority
• Random calling on in discussions (you can pass)
• Hearing from more of you
• We all need forum for trying out and developing our own ideas
– Clearer expectations on assignments and participation grade
– Quizzes and reading questions to help you stay up in reading
(and other material)
– Homework Grading
• I will grade some of assignments more carefully (the rest just a
check)
– Graded ones count more (different for different students)
• Turn in on BB after HW 1
– More hands-on activities
– Keeping Daily Log more up-to-date
– Syllabus is mostly the same—but read over online version
What else can we do to improve
the class?
• Brainstorm and Discussion
– What can I do?
– What can Adam do?
– What can Andrew do?
– What can you do?
Rules for brainstorming
1. Postpone and withhold your judgment of ideas
2. Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
3. Quantity counts at this stage, not quality
4. Build on the ideas put forward by others
5. Every person and every idea has equal worth
• http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/brainstormingrules.html
Process for Brain Storming
• One person is the facilitator. She writes ideas on
the whiteboard or a piece of paper.
• Participants call out new ideas
• The facilitator writes down the ideas, she may
not censor or alter ideas, only record them.
• When the flow of new ideas ends, the group as a
whole organizes the ideas.
– This is the time for discussion
– Several ideas my be the same, only in different words
– Ideas may be grouped
Finnish Up Old Business
• Grades from last term
– distribution, extra points added in, generous
on attendance
• Feedback on group presentations
– While groups meet
• Share HW 0 experiences
What’s Happening this quarter?
• Climate Change
– Organized around Field Notes From a
Catastrophe
– Includes focus on quantitative skills (as well
as other goals)
• How Societies Adapt (or not) to changes
– Organized around Collapse
– Includes focus on critical thinking (as well as
other goals)
Required Textbooks
• Field Notes from a
Catastrophe (2006)
– by Elizabeth Kolbert
• Collapse: How Societies
Choose to Fail or
Succeed (2005)
– by Jared Diamond.
• Ways of Writing: A Guide
to College Composition,
2nd Edition. (2008)
– by Bergland, Daneen, et al
What Major projects will we do?
Assignment
% Grade
Brief Description
Main Class
Participation
15
Active participation in and quality contributions to class sessions and effort given to the
completion of informal class assignments.
Mentor Session / LLC
Participation
15
Active participation in and contribution to mentor session activities, discussions, assignments, as
well as Sustainability LLC activities, including a volunteer experience with PSU and/or
community sustainability efforts.
Homework
20
Complete assignments, including short essays & quantitative exercises related to readings,
assigned films, news items, or other relevant topics.
Carbon Footprint
10
Estimate your yearly carbon footprint and write a report including graphical analysis of your data.
Compare your footprint to others in US and world.
Essay Exam
15
Take home mid-term essay exam on readings and other course materials.
Collapse Research
Essay and Group
Presentation
20
Research a society described in Collapse; write a paper including the indicators of instability. Then
working in a team of students who reviewed the same society to prepare a presentation for
the class on your society.
Final Reflection
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End-of-term formal reflection essay on what you learned, how you learned, and how this relates to
University Studies and the Sustainability LLC goals.
Some Specific Learning Objectives
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Sustainability Issues
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Natural Cycles—water, carbon, nitrogen, etc.
Atmospheric composition, Greenhouse Gas Theory
Political (but not Sci.) climate change controversy
Sources and sinks of CO2 and other gases
Difficulties of societal decisions, Equity and Fairness Issues, Exploitation of Power
Stabilization Wedges
Ecocide and criticisms of Collapse; Difficulties in understanding past societies
Psychology of happiness and consumerism (does stuff make us happy?)
Basic skills
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Writing/Reading
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Discussion skills
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Quantitative/Technology
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Trying out ideas, helping others develop their ideas, honest but polite feedback, avoiding logical fallacies
Understanding scientific evidence in terms of statistics; webpage design, start portfolios; basic modeling, algorithmic
thinking, logic, programming?
Understanding Systems Ideas (meta level)
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Awareness of audience, consistent voice and tense, thesis statement and supporting evidence, use of citations and
evaluating source reliability, Critical reading
Social Dilemmas (Tragedy of the Commons, Prisoner’s Dilemma), Simpson’s paradox
Carrying capacity, More on feedbacks
Chaos theory, unpredictability of complex systems (butterfly effect); Catastrophe theory, irreversibility
Free market, How we decide what is best (maximizing greatest good, Pareto optimal, max GDP, etc.)
All of this in the context of improving on four main University Studies Learning Goals
First Assignments
• Read
– Online version of the syllabus on Blackboard
– Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Kolbert)
• Preface, Ch. 1, 2 (p.1-44) (due Mon)
• First Assignments
– Homework 1: Sustainability Autobiography
• Rough draft of 1st paragraph due this Wed.
• Final version due Mon.
– Reading questions for Kolbert (due Mon)
Group Exercise
• Brainstorm on what evidence exists for
human-caused climate change
• Evaluation step
– How reliable is this evidence?
– Why does it matter? What are the predicted
consequences if evidence is real?