[perspectives and experiences]

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With registration looming, we wanted to remind you how the perspectives and experiences portion of the Environmental Studies major works.  30 credits of perspectives must be completed for the Environmental Studies major in total.  5 of these credits may be a 200 level course.  The remainder of these credits must be 300 or 400 level courses. 

The perspectives list is not an exhaustive list.   Want to take a course that is not on the perspectives list?  Taking a course currently that you think may count for the major but aren’t sure?   Submit a petition via the poe.washington.edu website.  The link to the course petition is here. 

[course][aut/2013]: ENVIR 495D: Culture & Conservation: Protected Areas Management in Global Perspective

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Dear All, 

I’m writing to promote my course for this coming Autumn 2013, ENVIR 495D: Culture & Conservation: Protected Areas Management in Global Perspective. This class will meet either the Human & Social Dimensions or the International breadth requirements for the Program on the Environment major. ‘W’ (Writing) credit will also be available. The course is open to students in other majors and may also be of interest to graduate students interested in the intersection of culture and conservation. There are no prerequisites, but students should be open to dipping their toes into some critical theory from anthropology and geography. 
Course Description:

Protected areas (national parks, wildlife preserves, marine reserves, etc.) exist on every continent and are a key part of a global strategy to conserve biodiversity. However, these parks generate controversy if/when local communities are excluded from living in, using, and managing the spaces designated for protection. This course will examine critically the strategies developed by resource managers to better integrate local communities (and “culture”) in protect areas management. We will compare experiments in “community-based” resource management in protected areas in Africa, Latin America, Asia, & the United States and examine the factors that contribute to the success or failure of these initiatives. How well do these initiatives account for “cultural” differences? How do they define “community” and determine who has a right to participate in management? How do they balance aspirations for ecological conservation with aspirations for economic development and local autonomy? Who determines what constitutes a conservation success story? 

A number of social theorists have critiqued global conservation as a problematic form of eco-colonialism. We will discuss this and other critiques of conservation to help us understand why even “community-based” initiatives sometimes generate conflict and yield underwhelming results.  However, we will also mine the literature for suggestions about how to move beyond these critiques. How can we take part in the design of more socially just and ecologically sustainable approaches to protected areas management?  

Course Requirements:
Students will be expected to carefully read and prepare written responses to assigned materials, contribute actively to and lead classroom discussions, and complete a final (10-12 page) paper examining the intersection of culture and conservation in the management of a protected area of their own choosing. 
Please let me know if you have questions!
Happy registering, 
Megan
– 

Megan A. Styles, Ph.D.

**Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow**
University of Washington, Program on the Environment
office: Wallace 15F; Winter Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:30-4:30 or by appt

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Summer Perspectives and Experiences classes are now ready for your viewing pleasure!  Please feel free to check it out here!  As always, with any advising questions, please email poeadv@uw.edu as this is not an exhaustive list.  

[course]: BIOL 240: The Urban Farm (SUM/2013)

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Biology 240: The Urban Farm
Instructor: Beth Wheat
3 Credits; Summer A-Term; [time schedule]

In this course students will learn the essential skills for maintaining soil health and turning urban spaces into productive landscapes.  We will cover: crop rotation, soils, urban farm planning, composting and cover cropping.   There will be a hands on component at the UW farm as well as field trips to some local farms (both inside and out of the city limits).   This is a great opportunity to develop a great skill (growing food) and thinking about how we can improve our food system from the bottom up!

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Need a fieldwork, bioregional or human and social perspective credit?  This is YOUR class!  Get out of the classroom three Saturdays this coming quarter and learn about how ‘stuff’ is grown!

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This course is offered one time only through Huckabay Fellow (and ENVIR 280 TA from last spring!) Susan Waters. It will count for either the ‘natural science’, ‘policy and decision-making’, or ‘fieldwork’ perspectives requirements.

[courses] – Spring 2012: More Perspectives and Experiences Courses!

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1) ENVIR / COM 418 – Communication and the Environment

**This course counts towards Human/Social Dimensions**

2) POL S 335A – Poverty and Hunger in the World Food System (Professor Adrian Sinkler)

Please note: This course will be available for registration to non-POLS students beginning Period 2 (Monday, March 5 at 6am).

**This course counts towards Policy & Decision Making and/or International for Perspectives and Experiences**

Poverty and hunger are mostly rural phenomena around the world, and though the poor in “developed” countries also have limited access to food markets that negatively impacts their nutrition and health, those who suffer the most from this lack of access are (ironically) farmers and pastoralists in the developing world. In this course we will cover the main theoretical debates concerning the best way to address the issues of rural poverty and rural development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Does free trade make needed foodstuffs more accessible to the world’s rural poor, or does it contribute to poverty by “crowding out” small farmers? Do Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) make it easier for poor farmers to expand their yields and income, or do they lead to high rates of farmer debt and the “fertilizer treadmill?” Will land redistribution to the rural poor increase food sovereignty and security for developing countries, or will it lead to a dangerous decline in the global food supply? Upon taking this course, students will be in a better position to understand the debates behind these questions and formulate their own answers with reference to historical and cross-national data.

3) FRENCH / LIT 228 – The Water Crisis in Literature and Film  (Professor Richard Watts)

**This course counts towards Human/Social Dimensions and/or International for Perspectives and Experiences**

We will interpret a variety of documents and objects–novels (e.g., Masters of the Dew), cinema (e.g., Even the Rain), architecture (the fountains of Versailles, etc.) that address the cultural significance of water with the aim of understanding how water’s meaning has changed as we have become more conscious of risks in supply (posed by pollution and natural/man-made scarcity) and as access to it is increasingly mediated (as a result of its privatization, commodification, etc.). While no ten-week course could pretend to give a comprehensive and global view of problem as complex as our relation to water, we will study novels, essays, films and other cultural documents from Western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and North America with a view to understanding the differential distribution of the water crisis and the variety of aesthetic responses to it.