Environment & Natural Resources Class
The Earth as Body, Body as Planet course is a topics course offered through the University of Wyoming’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. It is cross listed in the Division of Kinesiology and Health and serves primarily students who are also on the Nordic Ski Team. One of the umbrella goals of every iteration of the course is for students to be able to explain the inextricable link between the health of the planet and their own health.
Spring 2023 - Earth as Body, Body as Planet
During the spring 2023 semester, the Earth as Body, Body as Planet course knit together traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) with the tenants of participatory action research (PAR) to inspire students' projects surrounding the environmental injustice of Patsiada (Paiute-Shoshone name for Owens Dry Lakebed).
The Los Angeles Aqueduct was built in 1913 and, in concert with the impacts of unsustainable agriculture and climate change led to the complete desiccation of Owens lake. By the mid to late 1900s, the lakebed became the largest emitter of toxic particulate matter worldwide. Mitigation efforts have cost billions of dollars and have unexpectedly created a unique ecosystem where certain microbial species thrive and to which birds and mammals have returned. The lakebed is now open to the public, scientists, artists, and historians (Mexmen, 2018). During the summer of 2022 we began a partnership with artists Lauren Bon, Tristan Duke, and Richard Nielsen of the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio. The Optics Division had discovered that the sulfur rich, extremophile laden brine of the Owens Lakebed had photochemical properties and over the previous decade had invented a process by which they could develop and fix their giant photographic prints directly in the lakebed. The Fall 2022 capstone seminar centered the Optics Division’s practice in a semester-long investigation of not only the microbiological and geochemical basis for the Lakebed Developing process, but also exploring the complex issues of social and environmental justice surrounding the site and the artists’ work. The Capstone students' research shows that arsenic levels in the dry lakebed are still dangerously high (Microbiology Capstone Website and link to student work). During our second semester class, Earth as Body, Body as Planet students partnered with Kathy Bancroft (Paiute-Shoshone Owens Valley Historian) to perform action research. Here we share about the curriculum design for this course and the resultant student PAR projects. Designing the Curriculum We utilized PAR methods to design the syllabus for the course. We began by immersing the students in the problem of the Owens dry lakebed by sharing the products (including a film documentary) from the prior semester. We then began drafting a shared Google Doc with skeleton features of a syllabus. The two co-instructors added some learning outcomes and then reached out to the entire class to get their additions. Together, the class members created the syllabus. Even after initial creation, the syllabus was not a static document and we continually circled back around to it to determine which outcomes we were achieving, which outcomes were still feasible, which outcomes would have to be saved for another learning experience. While we included more outcomes on the initial iteration of the syllabus, those that we were ultimately able to master are included here.
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Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) Conference Presentation
Authors:
Rachel M. Watson Director of the Science Initiative’s Learning Actively Mentoring Program (LAMP) Instructor in Chemistry and Microbiology Co-Coach of the UW Nordic Ski Team
Assoc Director of Digital & Inclusive Teaching & Learning School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice Volunteer Co-Coach of the UW Nordic Ski Team Owens Valley tribes honor a legacy of ‘beauty and suffering’ with historic site nomination
By Louis Sahagún Staff Writer April 23, 2022 5 AM PT Pictures below show Members of the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio in collaboration with University of Wyoming instructors and students.
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Class session |
Pre-party |
Class Activities |
LO supported |
Gaining a Vocabulary to
describe the Action Research Tradition |
Readings: Excerpt from
Action Research by Stringer and Aragon, Excerpt from Alice McIntyre’s book
called Participatory Action Research, ARNA Website Video: Contextualizing
Action Research within the history of the UW Nordic Ski Team |
Performing an Action
Research Study in class: 1. Instructors form teams of of 3-4 people. 2. Grab a notebook and head
out of the classroom to observe. You may go to the gym, outside, or really anywhere you can get in only a few minutes. 3. Observe what is happening
around you. Write it down. Talk with people you see, those you know and those
you don't know. Name a problem or issue. 4. Gather with the other
people in your group. Reflect together about what is happening around you. If
they are willing, invite the people around you into the conversation. 5. How could you plan an
action, along with the people you talked with, that would make a positive
change? We will end class by considering how we might apply the
traditions of action research within the context of our course focus. |
4 |
Considering PAR
Literature |
Readings: A synopsis of
what we uncovered in our mini PAR studies: · The
problems experienced by our participants may not be the problems that we
think they are having. We lived the expression, “If you want to know what
someone is thinking, ask them!” · The
way that each person goes about engaging with participants might differ. · It
is possible to enter the observation, reflection, planning, action cycle at
different places. · Your
own curiosities led you to choose different people and environments with
which to engage. · It
is sometimes difficult/intimidating to approach participants. But once you
did, people generally had something to say. (What type of questions were most
likely to get your participants talking?), Journal article Building University Capabilities to
Respond to Climate Change Through Participatory Action Research: Towards a
Comparative Framework. |
Think, share and gallery
walk: on this Padlet |
1, 2 and 4 |
Defining and Integrating
Traditional Ecological Knowledge |
Readings: “The Honorable
Harvest” from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding
Sweetgrasss book, Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Academic Research
at Local and Global Scales by Alburquerque et
al. and Wisdom Traditions, Science and
Care for the Earth: Pathways to Responsible Action by Charles and Cajete. |
Cooperative learning
technique called Jigsaw with the ultimate goal of
addressing the question: How can the synergy of the three TEK resources with
which we engaged, along with PAR, help us synthesize novel solutions to the
Owens Lakebed injustice -or- the sustainability of skiing in the face of
climate change? |
2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 |
Submitting our ARNA
Abstract (2 sessions) |
Reading: ARNA Call for
Submissions |
Collaborative writing on
a google doc. |
5 |
Reflecting on Owens
Watershed, Developing a Timeline and remembering
PAR/TEK |
Travel to Owens
Watershed; readings: Chapter 11 from Writing Successful Science Proposals
by Freidland, Folt and
Mercer, and The Participatory Research of Orlando Fals
Borda by Alex Pereira and Joanne Rappaport. |
reflections on travel to Owens, share and co-edit research timelines, answer the
question: how might employing the
philosophies of Orlando Fals Borda
and action research change your timeline? |
7, 1, 4 and 5 |
Moving onto your own
Timeline |
Reading: The New York
Times article by Terry Tempest Williams entitled I am Haunted by What I have
Seen at the Great Salt Lake. |
Discussion of the article
followed by explaining how students’ work will now be dictated by their own
timelines and not instructor-generated curriculum. |
3, 6 and 7 |
Visiting with Kathy
Bancroft |
Reading: Owens Valley
Tribes Honor a Legacy of ‘beauty and suffering’ with historic site nomination |
Q&A with our Kathy |
All |
Presenting at ARNA |
Create a 3-minute
presentation of your PAR project |
Present at ARNA |
5 |
The class members were cross-level and cross-disciplines. Overall there were 9 students in the class (6 women and 3 men). Three students were PhD students (one in Geology and Geophysics and two in Botany and the Program in Ecology and Evolution). The undergraduate students represented many disciplines: environment and natural resources, zoology, physiology, chemical engineering, architectural engineering and civil engineering). Seven of the 9 students are on the University of Wyoming Nordic Ski Team.
- Mexmen, A. (2018). Lake Lazarus: the strange rebirth of a Californian ecosystem. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07353-6
- Stringer, E. T. and Aragon, A. O. (2021) Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
- McIntyre, A. (2008). Participatory Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
- Nussey, C. et al. (2022). Building University Capabilities to Respond to Climate Change Through Participatory Action Research: Towards a Comparative Framework, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 23, 2022: 95-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2021.2014427
- Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed.
- Albuquerque et al. (2021) Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Academic Research at Local and Global Scales. Regional Environmental Change. 21. Available: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-021-01774-2
- Charles, C. and Cajete, G. A. (2020) Wisdom Traditions, Science and Care for the Earth: Pathways to Responsible Action. Ecopsychology. 12. https://doi.org/10.1089/eco.2020.0020
- Freidland, A. J., Folt, C. L. Mercer, J. L. (2018) Writing Successful Science Proposals. New Haven, and London, UK. Yale University Press.
- Pereira, A. and Rappaport, J. (2022). The Participatory Research of Orlando Fals Borda. Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry. Available: https://www.participatorymethods.org/resource/participatory-research-orlando-fals-borda
- Tempest Williams, T. (2023). I am Haunted by What I have Seen at the Great Salt Lake. The New York Times. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/opinion/great-salt-lake-drought-utah-climate-change.html