Geo 311 [3 cr.]
T Th 9:30 AM - 10:50 PM, Withycombe 109 [very likely to be changed]
Spring Quarter 2006
Professor Ronald E. Doel
Last revised: 17 April 2006
Course description: This course will examine attitudes
towards the environment in the United States during the twentieth century, focusing on the history of conservation
and environmental policy. Among the issues we will explore: what values were preserved and upheld at various times
during the twentieth century? Towards what ends were natural resources maintained? How were decisions about these
resources made? What criteria were used in evaluating critical scientific issues? How did the American experience
compare with other parts of the world?
A Baccalaureate Core Course satisfying the Contemporary Global Issues segment of Synthesis, Geo 311 also satisfies the Applied Ethics Certificate [AEC] in the Department of Philosophy.
Course Objectives:
This course will allow students to gain insight into the practice of decision-making in environmental policy issues
through careful analysis of the actions and beliefs of actors involved in judgments concerning forests, rivers,
agricultural land, the atmosphere, and national parks and recreation areas. Students will gain skills that will
aid them in careers in resources management, policy, and science education.
The course will be included in the human/regional geography requirements for Geography BS and BA degrees. The course
will also benefit students pursuing degrees in Geography, Geology, Forest Resources, Fisheries & Wildlife,
Crop & Soils, and Business, as well as Environmental Science, Natural Resources, and Earth Science interdisciplinary
degrees, who want to gain a firmer understanding of the relationship of scientific ideas and decision-making within
particular historical contexts. A historical perspective provides an important means for students to assess fundamental
issues in contemporary environmental policy controversies.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of GEO 311, students will develop critical thinking skills that will allow them to reach their own conclusions
about the range of factors that contribute to environmental policy decision-making.
Specifically, students will gain:
(1) Knowledge about specific long-term historical trends and ideological commitments that influence environmental
policy outcomes;
(2) Comprehension of primary source materials and their interpretation;
(3) Enhanced ability to apply course methods, concepts, and theories in new applications; experience in synthesizing
a wide range of sources into a coherent account of how environmental policy decisions are made; and greater facility
in writing analyses of these developments;
(4) Ability to analyze the political, religious, cultural, social, ideological scientific, and technological factors
that contribute to environmental policy; and
(5) Skills in synthesizing new perspectives on the history of American environmental policy by placing these developments
within an international perspective.
Evaluation:
There will be two mid-term examinations and one final examination. Students will also complete two short writing
assignments (3-4 pp. each, double-spaced) that will address historic and contemporary issues in environmental policy.
Topics will be assigned and discussed in class. The midterms and final examination are all essay-style. The midterms
respectively focus on the first third and second third of the course; the final exam is comprehensive. The midterms
and finals together contribute 60%; the written project constitutes 30% of the course grade; and 10% of the grade
is based on class participation.
University and Departmental Policies:
Students with documented disabilities who may need accommodations, who have any emergency
medical information the instructor should be aware of, or who need special arrangements in the event of evacuation,
should make an appointment with the instructor as early as possible, and no later than the first week of the term.
All class materials will be made available in accessible format upon request.
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; and
plagiarism--representing the words or ideas of another person as one's own.
All seminar members are to sign up for Blackboard, which will facilitate electronic communications with all of
you and make possible any desired email groups. Log on via http://my.oregonstate.edu ; see FAQ at this site for further instructions. Students are expected to have an active email account
(any account is fine, but be sure mail is being forwarded to you from your ONID accounts). Email is often the best
way to reach me.
Students are encouraged to take advantage of the university's Writing Center in preparing papers for this course. The Writing Center
phone is 737-5640; you can also stop by the Writing Desk at The Valley Library, second floor, phone: 737-8385.
Required Texts (available at Memorial Union bookstore; all paperback)
Stephen R. Fox, John Muir and his Legacy: The American Conservation Movement
Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States,
1955-1985
Kirkpatrick Sale, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement
Richard White, The Organic Machine
Donald Worster, The Dust Bowl
Several supplemental readings have been placed at the Circulation
/ Reserve area on the second floor, Valley Library, as noted in the course schedule below.
Requirements:
There will be two mid-term examinations and one final examination. Students will also complete two short writing
assignments (3-4 pp. each, double-spaced) that will address historic and contemporary issues in environmental policy.
Topics will be assigned and discussed in class.
Yosemite panorama, ca. 1899, courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
Week 1: Introduction
April 4, 6:
Reading: Fox, pp. 3-26
- Maps of the Americas
- Search Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
- American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936
- Environmental History Timeline
April 11, 13 On Tuesday, 11 April, we meet in the Autzen
classroom [2nd floor, in Valley Library].
Reading: Fox, pp. 103-182
Web links:
[April 18: Video, The West, Episode
8: One Sky Above Us ]
Reading [for 4/18]:
Fox, pp. 183-217.
Nash [Circulation / Reserve], pp. 342-378
for 4/20: please read
Buck, "No Tragedy on the Commons," 46-52 and attached documents [Circulation/Reserve]
Hardin, "Tragedy of the Commons" [Circulation/Reserve]
** First short exam **
** Writing assignment #1 revised due date: Tuesday 2 May** § Researching Primary Sources [Jane Nichols' site] § Finding Primary Sources
[May 9: tentative: film, Roll on, Columbia! Woodie Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration]
Reading: White, entirety [short book]
[May 16: tentative: film, Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring]
Reading: Fox, pp. 250-290
Sale, pp. 3-28
Gottlieb [Circulation / Reserve], pp. 3-11, 307-320 [skim]
E.B. White, "Sootfall and Fallout" [Circulation
/ Reserve], pp. 90-99
Reading: Hays, pp. 171-245
U.S. Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments [excerpt] [Circulation
/ Reserve] (skim for comprehension)
** second short exam now optional,
for extra-credit **
Reading: Hays, pp. 491-526 [skim]
Sales, pp. 29-108
Details on final writing and extra credit: click on these later in the term.
Doel [single page] [Circulation / Reserves]
Macfarlane, "Underlying Yucca Mountain: The Interplay of Geology and Policy in Nuclear Waste Disposal"
[handout]
Hays, pp. 527-543
Weart, pp. 18-27 [Circulation / Reserves]
Susan J. Buck, "No Tragedy on the Commons," in Ken Conca, Michael Alberty & Geoffrey D. Dabelko, eds., Green Planet Blues: Environmental Politics from Stockholm to Rio (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 46-52 .
Ronald E. Doel, "Polar Melting When Cold War Was Hot," San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 3, 2000, p. A15.
Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993), pp. 3-11, 307-320.
Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science, 162 (1968): 1243-1248.
Samuel P. Hays, "A Challenge to Forestry," in Hays, Explorations in Environmental History (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), pp. 172-184.
Macfarlane, Allison. "Underlying Yucca Mountain: The Interplay of Geology and Policy in Nuclear Waste Disposal." Social Studies of Science 33, 5 (2003): 783-807.
Roderick Nash, "The International Perspective," in Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, third edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 342-388.
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, eds. Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (New York: Free Press, 1986). [Book; not in xeroxed readings collection.]
James D. Proctor, "Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests," in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (NY: Norton, 1996), pp. 269-297.
United States. Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996). [excerpt]
E.B. White, "Sootfall and Fallout," in White, Essays of E.B. White (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 90-99.
Spencer R. Weart, "From the Nuclear Frying Pan into the Global Fire." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 48, 5 (1992): 18-27.
Questions or comments? Please email R.E. Doel.
