During this course you will become familiar with the physical landscape, natural resources and multicultural influences in the American West. Overall objectives for students in the class are:

• To recognize the multiple values placed on natural resources both historically and in the present.
• To identify changes since 1800 in the distribution of natural resources of the American West.
• To understand the role of diverse cultures in changing uses of natural resources of the American West.
• To recognize the role of power and discrimination in cultural conflicts over resource use.

Instructor: Dr. Judy Li
Office: 040 Nash Hall
Phone: 737-1093
Email: judith.li@orst.edu (Please include "FW340" in the subject line.)

Distance Education Coordinator, Fisheries & Wildlife:
        Email: Charlotte.Vickers@orst.edu
        Phone: 1-541-737-4531

Course website for enrolled students (Blackboard): http://my.oregonstate.edu/

Course Videos: available as a set from the OSU Bookstore 1-800-595-0357 http://www.osubookstore.com

COURSE ORGANIZATION

This course is divided into five units: Introduction, Pacific Northwest, California, Great Plains, and Southwest. Each unit begins with a description of regional landscapes and overview of physical and biological resources of particular interest. Within each unit we will examine Native American resource use patterns, Euro-American influences on resource use and extraction, and new social structures developed when new cultures settled. The review discussion at the end of each unit considers these changes in resource use, and presents a contemporary resource issue. For each of these modern issues you are asked to consider how current controversies are related to earlier resource uses and conflicts. You may wish to allow one day for each lecture, though some are shorter than others. To complete each unit you must take the unit essay quiz.

Students should view the Introductory Unit first, as ideas in those lectures are pertinent to all units. Students in the campus version of this class follow the order of lectures listed in the schedule; however as a distance student you may view regional units in whatever order you choose. Regional units have been designed to be independent of one another though there are occasional references to other units where events or issues overlap.

Learning Philosophy: You will have many ways to learn in this class. You are encouraged to learn from assigned readings, class lectures and discussions, and from each other. To accomplish the latter you can participate in an online discussion group in which you can explore questions posed at the end of each lecture and in preparation for quizzes. A discussion board for each regional unit will be opened in Blackboard. We will monitor the discussions to assure that appropriate courtesy and respect for divergent ideas are maintained. We hope you will gain greater understanding as a result of discussions with others, but the essay assignments you turn in must be your own.

Course lectures are provided on a series of video tapes to be purchased through the OSU Bookstore.

ASSIGNED TEXTS
(available through OSU Bookstore 1-800-595-0357 http://www.osubookstore.com)

Sucheng Chan, Douglas Henry Daniels, Mario T. Garcia & Terry P. Wilson 1994. Peoples of Color in the American West. D. C. Heath, Lexington, Mass.

Craig Lesley. River Song. Picador Press

Tony Hillerman. Great Taos Bank Robbery. University of New Mexico Press.

LECTURES and ASSIGNMENTS

GRADING CRITERIA

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY - OSU POLICY

Students are expected to be honest and ethical in their academic work. Academic dishonesty is defined as an intentional act of deception in one of the following areas:

• cheating - use or attempted use of unauthorized materials, information or study aids
• fabrication - falsification or invention of any information assisting- helping another commit an act of academic dishonesty
• tampering - altering or interfering with evaluation instruments and documents
• plagiarism- representing the words or ideas of another person as one's own

Students who commit any acts of academic dishonesty may be penalized by a severe reduction in grade or failure in the course.

Students with Disabilities

Students with documented disabilities, who may need accommodations, who have any emergency medical information the instructor should know of, or who need special arrangements, should consult with the instructor prior to the second week of the term.

Suggestions for using Blackboard
(Course website for enrolled students)

Organization of class materials in Blackboard:

Announcements will contain updated information for various assignments and comments from Dr. Li regarding questions that may come up in the discussion boards, emails or assignments.

Assignments. Learning materials for lectures are contained in files within regional folders under the "Assignments" header.
Regional folders serve the following purposes:

• Show basic structure to class.
• Highlight major topics and review questions important for reviewing lecture and reading materials.
• Provide details that might be difficult to record during lectures such as dates, legislative acts, historical sequences etc. They are provided because they are important for understanding historical contexts.

Each folder lists brief notes, assignments, and review questions for each lecture. The notes are intended to help you see the overall structure, and you are expected to expand with what you learn during lectures and from your readings. To help you connect essays and stories to lectures, reading guidelines are provided for each assignment. Similar to what might happen in a classroom environment several questions are posed in lecture notes; to emphasize these questions they are highlighted in red. Try to answer these for yourself. These and additional review questions at the end of each lecture will help you study for essay quizzes. Related information such as maps and timelines, are provided for some lectures.

For each region there will be a separate essay quiz folder. You need to answer one question that you choose among the questions listed. These will be based on review questions and you may use your notes. It is expected that you will need about 10-15 minutes to answer the question of your choice; the essay should not be longer than 2 pages double-spaced. You can only open the folder once, and your answer must be submitted before you close the folder. The most efficient system may be to open another document in your word processing system to compose your answer, then copy the entire answer to the quiz file. After you submit the answer via Blackboard Dr. Li will receive a notice of your submission. You should receive a grade within 2 weeks.

Calendar will display important target dates for quizzes and assignments. You should be aware that students will choose independently the order in which they wish to take the units, so indicating exact dates when you take quizzes is not possible. Reviewing 3 lectures per week, and completing quizzes immediately after each unit should keep you on pace to complete within one quarter.

Communications: Class discussion boards will be opened for each regional unit and the Special Places project. In addition to individual ideas you wish to share with others, you can discuss questions that come up in lectures or review. To post your contributions you will need to identify yourself. Everyone is expected to show courtesy and respect for other learners in this electronic environment.

In a few lectures class surveys will be taken; enter your answers in the file labeled specifically for them. The latter will be for the values in resources survey (Intro lecture 2), and class ethnicity (Intro lecture 4).

Writing Assignments

Create individual homepage in Blackboard. This should give other class members and instructors a little information about you. You could add photos of yourself and/or the landscape where you live. A major objective is to introduce you to Blackboard and make sure you are able to get into the notebook folders etc.

Craig Lesley: River Song
Read the entire novel in preparation for discussion at end of Pacific Northwest Unit. Respond to one of the River Song questions posed at end of PNW lectures. You should submit this essay within one week after PNW lectures are complete.

Essay Quizzes at the end of each Regional Unit:
These will be posted in separate folders, one for each region, within the Assignments Blackboard section. Unit quizzes will require essay responses (and are sometimes referred to as essays in video lectures). Use questions at the end of each lecture for review and guidance. Often they integrate ideas from related lectures. Quiz questions will contain elements of these review questions.

You are encouraged to discuss the review topics and readings online. The discussion boards are intended to help you communicate with other students and learn from other perspectives. We will post a discussion board for each unit during the quarter in which the course is given.

Quizzes will be open book -- that is you may use your notes; thus you won't be expected to memorize small details. You may need to discuss the significance of historical, political and cultural contexts revealed by particular dates or events. You also will be expected to integrate information between units.

For Example:

A review question in Introduction 3 is "What are characteristics of common property resources?"

A potential quiz question for the Southwest Unit, related to this review question, would be "How are acequia water systems managed as common property resources?" In your response you would include characteristics discussed in both the Introductory Unit and the Southwest Unit.

More than one question will be posted in the quiz file for each unit. Choose only one to answer in a well-composed essay no longer than 2 pages double-spaced. You may only open the file once, and you must submit your answer before closing it. The most efficient system may be to open another document in your word processing system to compose your answer, then copy the entire answer to the quiz file. It is expected that you will need about 10-15 minutes to answer the question of your choice; the essay should not be longer than 2 pages double-spaced (that you could determine in the word processing program). After you submit the answer via Blackboard Dr. Li will receive a notice of your submission. You should receive a grade within 2 weeks.

At the end of PNW you will be submitting 2 essays: one for the unit itself, and another for River Song.

Grading criteria for essay quizzes:

Content: development of ideas, accuracy and relevance
Organization: logic, connections between main ideas
Composition: sentence structure, grammar, spelling

Special Places Project: see detailed description of this assignment

Special Places Project: Term Project for FW 340 (Distance)
A Spirit of Place, A Personal Perspective

This project will provide you an opportunity to learn about and describe a place that is special to you in its physical, biological, historical and cultural contexts. This place must be fundamentally a natural place, that is not primarily buildings, but it can be a park or other location altered by human activities.

Elements of the paper:

1. Describe physical and biological attributes of this place as the context for what has happened there since 1500. Include a map of its location, and a sketch or photograph of the place.
2. Summarize the history of peoples living on or using this piece of land pre-European contact to the present. To keep this description within 5 pages you may choose to consider hundred year intervals, but the last 150 years most likely were the times of greatest change.
3. Describe the Native American groups that used resources in your place, and what has happened to those peoples.
4. Discuss the early influx of settlers, tell about the first arrivals, and what brought them to your place. How did settlers acquire land originally?
5. What were the cultural conflicts, and what political or social activities changed or regulated resource use?
6. Discuss current uses of natural resources in your special place. What conflicts over resources are likely to arise in the future?

Criteria for choosing your special place (and make it easier on yourself):

Specific, localized place
Natural setting; a landscape rather than a small spot
A history of multiple peoples and/or values

The form of your narrative can fit your particular story. Many students have chosen places important to their families. Their papers take on a biographical quality. Some have chosen a place they would like to go, but have never seen. They take a more exploratory approach in their papers. The elements listed can be considered in the order provided, but there are many possibilities for organizing the paper. Feel free to discuss your ideas with Dr. Li or the teaching assistant via blackboard.

Your bibliography must include at least 3 of 4 kinds of references (research literature or journals, web pages, popular press such as newspapers, or oral interviews). See syllabus page on bibliographic formats for more details. Searching for these references, how to cite them in your paper, and how to list them in the bibliography will be explained during the lecture on library resources.

Note: A rough draft is due on Monday of week 8. Final is due on Monday of Week 10. (Finals is week 11).

Page Limit: Five pages; bibliography and illustrations may be additional

Aim to be concise.

Format: Double space, no less than font size 10 (the instructor can't read print that is too tiny!)

Grading Criteria for Special Places Project

You will be given a rating sheet on your project using the criteria that follow. (See also the video lecture in the Introduction Unit that discusses this project.) These criteria should help you anticipate important issues of format, writing style, as well as content.

Bibliography

__Narrative supported appropriately with specific references
__Format of citations complete and conforming to information in class handout

Required Elements

Physical Description

__Exact location (latitude, longitude)
__Elevation
__Watershed in which your place occurs
__Climate pattern (annual rainfall, pattern of precipitation, annual temperature pattern, seasonal changes)
__Map denoting this place

Biological Information

__Image (sketch or photograph) of your place
__Description of wildlife, including animals you have observed
__What are the important natural resources in this place today? Cultural, Historical & Political Information
__What Indian tribes occupied or used this place prior to European or Euro-American contact? What resources did they rely on, and how were those resources acquired?
__Who were the first Europeans or Euro-Americans to arrive? Why did they come?
__What federal legislation or treaties determined how land was allocated at this place in the 19th Century? When did your place achieve its present ownership status, and how?

Integration

__What have been the key values attributed to this place historically?
__What do you value most about this place?
__What conflicts over natural resources occurred during the 19th and 20th Centuries? How did they resolve?
__What conflicts over natural resources are likely in this place in the future?

Overall Assessment (Clarity, organization, innovation)

Rough draft receives 25 points maximum. Final paper receives 100 points maximum.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORMAT for Special Places Project

You are expected to use at least three of the four kinds of resources indicated below in your paper. Organize references into the categories listed below, and use the format provided for each kind of reference. This specific format is used in several ecological journals.

Scholarly sources, academic journals (e.g. the journal Science, scholarly books)

Book:

Bastasch, Rick. 1998. Waters of Oregon. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis.

Chapter in book:

Jackson, Philip. 1993. Climate. In Atlas of the Pacific Northwest. Edited by Philip L. Jackson and Jon A. Kimerling. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis.

Journal article:

McCay, B.J. 1978. Systems ecology, people ecology and the anthropology of fishing communities. Human Ecology 6:397-422.

Popular press, government reports ( e.g. the newspaper Oregonian, reports from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Government reports:

Oregon. Parks and Recreation Division. Recreational values on Oregon rivers. Salem, April 1987.

U. S. Senate. 97th Congress, 1st Session. S.Res.148, Resolution calling for a moratorium of indefinite duration on the commercial killing of whales. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1982.

Newspaper:

Sterling, Julie. The Hopi way; a six-day immersion program brings the culture of Arizona's Hopi Indian reservation to life. The Oregonian, Travel Section, p. T1, T3, October 10, 1999.

Electronic references (Web pages)

Taylor, George H. 1997. Long-term precipitation cycles in Portland. Oregon Climate Service, October 1995. Accessed January 10, 1997. Available Oregon Climate Service Internet site: http://www.ocs.orst.edu/reports/PDX_precip.html.

Personal contacts (Interviews)

Janet Webster, Head Marine Science Center Librarian, Personal interview December 12, 1999.

Expected Progress for Special Places project

Week 2: Submit your choice of the place you will focus on, with a short statement about why you chose it.

Week 3: You should have a good outline of what you will include in your paper, with some specific information, and questions to yourself about things you still need to find.

Week 5: Review Workshop part of the Introduction video (Tape #2) that discusses this paper. This workshop is intended to answer questions that often arise about the paper. Questions related specifically to writing the paper may be posted to the Special Places Discussion Board in Blackboard.

Week 6: You should have at least some of your outline expanded into a narrative and at least 3 references identified.

Week 8: On Monday, submit a rough draft in Blackboard for comments by Dr. Li. (You cannot receive credit for the rough draft if it is not submitted by this week).

Week 10: Final Paper due on Monday of the tenth week of class. Papers submitted later than Monday may not be graded in time for a grade to be submitted for the term in which you are enrolled. Papers submitted during finals week (week 11) will lose half a grade on the paper portion of the final grade.