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Course Syllabus and Assignments
This course will explore the historical, natural,
social, and economic factors that influence the quality of Wisconsin’s
environment. Major theme areas
include: Conservation History, Ecological Foundations, Biodiversity, Water,
Land, Energy, Air, Environmental Health, and Environmental Quality and the
Future.
The Course Mission is:
To increase awareness and develop participant interests and literacy in
Wisconsin environmental content, issues, and ideas.
The course is 10 weeks in duration.
There are 8 Reflection assignments. 3 Main Written assignments, and continuous
Discussion. It is strongly
recommended that students progress according to the recommended dates.
Instructor(s):
Tim Byers
Assignments
Reflection Written assignments (8)
This course will cover 9
themes but we will only have Reflection assignments for the first 8:
History, Ecological Foundations, Biodiversity, Water, Land, Energy, Air, and
Environmental Health.
Each theme has a corresponding web page with subpages that provide
background material for it. You may access each theme by first going to this
site:
http://www.uwsp.edu/natres/nres600/main.htm
and selecting the icon for the theme you are working on.
For each theme write a brief essay (500 words maximum) on what you learned from that theme’s
explorations. How did it affect you, your knowledge, and thoughts. You may
approach this one of two ways. What was a new discovery for you? Or: How did you
reach a new understanding about something you were already familiar with?
The second part of your essay will focus on application and will
include your thoughts and ideas for real-world use of the week's material in
your professional setting.
The Course Schedule is
designed to keep students on track and allow instructors and students to discuss
topics (see section on Discussions below) at specific times throughout the
course. In addition, there is a penalty for late assignments (see section on
Grading below). Therefore, it is important that you keep up with the schedule
provided.
Each assignment must be quality
work. Quality work is defined as complete, considered responses. Responses
should be written in complete, grammatically correct sentences with appropriate
citation as needed. A late
assignment will be deducted one point for each day that it is late.
Graduate level work demonstrates
higher level thinking and attendant graduate level quality.
When submitting Reflection
assignments, please:
1.
Send completed assignments via email
in the body of the e-mail, not as an attachment (
tbyers@uwsp.edu ).
2.
Put the name of the theme in the subject line.
Reflection Written
assignments will be due as follows (by midnight):
History
October 14
Ecological Foundations
October 21
Biodiversity
October 28
Water
November 4
Land
November 11
Energy
November 18
Air
November 25
Environmental Health
December 2
Environmental Quality and the Future
No Reflection due
Remember to be concise and adhere to the 500 word maximum. Focus!
Each Reflection assignment
(8 in all) will be worth 12 points each (96 total, you get the last 4 free to
make an even 100).
Main Written assignments (3)
During the course, there
will be a total of three Main Written assignments (1,500
words maximum) focusing on the various environmental topics covered in the
course. The assignments are intended
to help you develop writing and exploration skills using the information
obtained from the web sites provided or any additional web sites or resources
you find to answer questions on various course topics.
The web sites that are
provided for each topic are the starting point to begin your explorations.
You are encouraged to explore additional sites and other sources of
information such as personal visits, phone calls to resource professionals,
e-mails to organizations, anything you can think of. If additional
websites were used to answer the question, please share their urls with us.
Written responses to each
question should be limited to 1,500
words, double-spaced, no less than 12-pt font, with one-inch margins on each
side. Written work should be clear,
concise, and properly cited. You might expect to spend 6 to 8 hours researching
and developing your written responses.
The Course Schedule is
designed to keep students on track and allow instructors and students to discuss
topics (see section on Discussions below) at specific times throughout the
course. In addition, there is a penalty for late assignments (see section on
Grading below). Therefore, it is important that you keep up with the schedule
provided.
Each assignment must be quality
work. Quality work is defined as complete, considered responses. Responses
should be written in complete, grammatically correct sentences with appropriate
citation as needed. A late
assignment will be deducted one point for each day that it is late.
Graduate level work demonstrates
higher level thinking and attendant graduate level quality.
When submitting Main Written
assignments, please
1.
Send completed assignments via email
as an attached file to tbyers@uwsp.edu
2.
Put the name of the topic and question number in the subject
line.
Main Written assignments
will be due as follows by midnight:
History, Ecological Foundations, Biodiversity
November 6
Water, Land, Energy
November 30
Air, Environmental Health
December 9
Environmental Quality and the Future
Not covered as a Main Written assignment
Each Main Written
assignment (3 in all) will be worth 33 points (99 total, you get the last 1 free
to make an even 100).
Discussions
During the course, discussion will
be continuous. Students and
instructors will share information and ideas regarding course topics and discuss
course components and delivery. The discussion sessions will be conducted in the
Desire-to-Learn (D2L) course environment. Participation is the key to your
grade. In all of these activities, you will be instructed as to how or where to
submit your responses. Your responses in Discussion will be open to others in
the class (meaning that your classmates can read what you wrote). It is intended
to be an interactive discussion. Feel free to respond to other class
participants to generate discussion. I will log on at least once a day, if not
more. If for whatever reason you have something that you feel you would rather
communicate to me privately, you may contact me via email at
tbyers@uwsp.edu
Students are strongly encouraged to check
the D2L Discussion area regularly and communicate with fellow classmates
throughout the course because past experience has shown that such interaction is
invaluable.
In Desire2Learn (D2L) Discussion is
organized into Forums and Topics. A Forum is shaded light grey and says Title in
the darker grey ribbon at the top. Below the Forum Title are Topics. They
alternate white and light grey backgrounds. You will be posting to the Topics.
Each discussion week (10 in all)
will be worth
10 points.
To earn full credit for discussion
there are two things you must do.
Submitting three posts and reading
at least half of all posts will earn you 6 points. The other 4 points available
in any given week will be at my discretion based on the perceived quality of
your posts. Don’t worry about this, just be engaged with the course and your
classmates and you will be fine.
Grading
Grading is based on a point system.
Each letter grade has a designated number of points that you must achieve in
order to earn that grade (see below).
Late Penalty: each day an assignment is late will lose three (3) points from
its possible maximum.
Three (3) 1,500 word assignments @
33 points
= 99 points (+ 1 free)
100
Eight (8) 500 word
Reflection assignments @ 12 points = 96 points (+ 4 free)
100
10 discussions @ 10 points
100
Total points on offer
300
Letter Grades
A - 90% = 270, B - 80% = 240, C -
70% = 210, D - 60% = 180
Good luck!
Questions?
Contact Tim Byers, UWSP Continuing
Outreach Program Manager,
tbyers@uwsp.edu or (715)-346-4176
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Date Last Modified: 10/07/2009 02:55 PM |