Sustainability Freshman Inquiry

Nov. 30, 2009

Jeff Fletcher

Logistics

• Questions about final reflection essay?

• All work graded and on Blackboard – check for accuracy

• Final Reflection Essay Due Friday by 5pm– Box in UNST office

The Four University Studies Learning Goals

Students will acquire skills in the following areas• Inquiry and Critical Thinking• Communication• Ethics and Social Responsibility• The Diversity of Human Experience

How do topics and learning activities help:• Students gain competency in the four UNST goals• Develop skills as curious and competent self-learners• Develop an understanding of the rich interconnectedness and

complexity of our natural and social worlds• Understand basic concepts about the world (positive feedback, tragedy

of the commons, limits to our intuitions)

Fall Term Main Topics

• Sustainability– Our Food Systems– Our Water Systems– Our Health Systems

• Academic Skills– Writing– Critically Reading / Thinking/ Listening /

Discussing– Presentations

Assignments / Activities

– HW0: Attend Public Sustainability Event and Write About It– HW1: Sustainability Artifact Assignment– HW2: Sustainability Artifact Revision– HW3: Typical Meal– Writing Self-Assessment– Causal Maps for "Cheap Corn“– HW4: Your Beliefs about Your Impact– Midterm Essays– Water Footprint Report (with draft)– Design your "off-grid" diet and garden– Group Project: Sustainability at PSU (Indiv. And Group)– HW 5: Healthcare Reform and the Media– Final Reflection Essay

Guest Speakers

– Karen Kennedy (Advising)– Brian Kirk (Writing Center, Self-Assessment)– Kelly Larson and Ujjal Pathak (Energy

Conservation in Residence Hall)– Robyn Fenske, Food Awareness Study (Extra

Credit)– Heather Spalding, Sustainability Tour

Film / Video and Fieldtrip

– Outside Class• Movie Night (King Corn) • Class Field Trip to Tryon Life Community Farm

– Michael Shermer founder of Skeptical Society (TED Talk)

– Svankmajer’s Lunch (Thesis Revisions and Topic Sentences)

– TV Ad’s promoting High Fructose Corn Syrup– Flow (selections from)– Frontline: Sick Around the World

Readings– Ways of Writing– Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen– Biotech's Plan to Sustain Agriculture (Sci American interview)– Reconciling livestock and environment (FAO of the United Nations)– The problem of what to eat. (Conservation Magazine)– Turning toxic coal ash into bridges, buildings (CNN)– Sell the rain: How the privatization of water caused riots in

Cochabamba, Bolivia ( CBC Radio)– Water Revolt Timeline (Frontline, PBS) (June 2002)– Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor? (New York Times)– What's in Your Water Bottle? (Frontline, PBS) (optional)– Letter From Bolivia: Leasing the Rain, (The New Yorker) (optional)– Big Food vs Big Insurance (New York Times, Pollan)– Why Are We So Fat (The New Yorker, Kolbert)

Abstract Concepts

• Ways of Knowing– Scientific Method– Mental Biases: Analogy between optical illusions and mental

illusion

• Open and Closed Systems• Matter / Energy / Information• Positive and Negative Feedbacks • Types of Disease Causing Agents (what is alive?)• Social Engineering • Basic Rights vs. Needs• Complex notion of “Sustainability”

Future

• Next term texts: – Kolbert, Elizabeth. (2006). Field Notes From

a Catastrophe. New York: Bloomsbury – Diamond, Jared M. (2005). Collapse: How

Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin Books

• Reason to stay in school

• Reasons to live more Sustainably…