New Core course components described --The Imperiled Planet -- RCC

Conversations are at the very core of learning well and thinking effectively:
students in a Rollins Conference class discussing ecological problems in the Chapel garden.

This RCC class will allow you:

1. to practice distinguishing facts from fictions regarding the role of humans on Earth.

2. to express your ideas based on videos, discussions, readings and observations in three ways:

a.     personal framework ( how do you describe and explain nature differently from your peers?),

b.     an analytical framework (taking an argument apart into supporting pieces),

c.     a synthetic framework (putting critical parts together into a whole).

3. to use biological, cultural, & ecological principles to examine shared parts of our world.

4. to work together in an effort to solve complex problems of human ecology, psychology, economics and contemporary society.

5. to identify and explain with examples that every ecological problem has related three facets:

i. Physical aspects,

ii. Biological aspects,

iii. Social aspects.

6. to practice discovering and exposing the bias or deep background to everyday problems.

7. to create a more sensible narrative about you, your society, surroundings, and nature.

8. to practice basic ingredients in and take steps to effectively write a cogent college term paper based on support for your arguments taken from the readings.

Print version

Texts and readings:
	The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment. Anne H. & Paul R. Ehrlich
	When The Killing's Done. T. C. Boyle
*Bimonthly readings:*
	"Storm over the Amazon," The Diversity of Life. E. O. Wilson
	"Like Weasels," Annie Dillard
	The Erotics of Place, An Unspoken Hunger, Terry Tempest Williams
	Our Stolen Future. Theo Colborn
	"The Tragedy of the Commons," Garret Hardin
"Americans and their Tidal Seas," Joseph Siry from Marshes of the Ocean Shore

The New York Times, science, technology, and health/environment sections

Print version

Structure
	Clarify	Define basic concepts
	Organize	Tuesdays -- discuss our text The Dominant Animal in terms of science Tuesday's section in the New York Times Thursdays -- applying what we learned to action by tutoring in local schools.
	Reflect	on the importance of ecological principles to examine the world's parts.
	Examine	comprehensively investigate all the authors' meaning in an essay.

What do we have to accomplish?

Assignments
	•	Attend all classes and class-related events
	•	Letter to the editor of the New York Times / Orlando Sentinel &/or Sandspur papers
	•	A personal essay based on interviews about you, other people and this shared planet. (Carl Sagan you tube)
	•	An analytical essay based on an argument from Ehrlich and three-four other authors.
	•	A synthetic essay based on the Hardin and Colburn articles with evidence from every author.
	•	Attend the final exam and
	•	verbally present a means to fairly protect humans and the planet.

The structure of this class is built around the concept of CORE, and acronym for the four related parts of the course. These parts come to together in the final three weeks and are used in the tenth week to describe the "New Imperative" that Ehrlich insists is a means of dealing with convergent problems that will outlive our efforts to remedy their causes.

C O R E
Clarify
Organize
Reflect
Examine

Clarify -- Define basic concepts that form the bedrock of our more difficult questions.

Attend all classes and events

Letter to the editor of the New York Times / Orlando Sentinel & Sandspur papers

Organize
Mondays	Introductions to chapters in & discussion based on The Dominant Animal
Wednesdays	A debate and discussion of science articles & sections in the New York Times
Fridays	applying what we are learning to actions and behavior

Examine

comprehensively investigate the meaning of all the authors in an essay.

All essays are redrafted to better comprehensively investigate the meaning of every author's significant arguments in an essay.

In any essay use all of the the authors we are reading, list all the sources you read to write the essay, use specific page references to where the concepts you are examining come from, list and graphical or visual material you use and where that was taken from and when.

Your papers are all done first as a draft-- and should be handed in with notes at the bottom of the page or at the end of the paper before your list of sources.

All written assignments should have an abstract to share with other members of the class.

Colborn, Dumanoski, & Myers. Our Stolen Future. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1997.