Environment & Natural Resources Class

The University of Wyoming Ski Team is a unique team that integrates formal and informal learning, training, and racing. We travel the nation and world pursuing both a healthy mind and a healthy body, presenting at international conferences as well as racing at an elite level.
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.

LO #

Successful learner were able to

1

Differentiate [participatory] action research from traditional disciplinary research

2

Develop a model and ask a question or make a hypothesis that shows that you 

o   recognize the inextricable link between anthropogenic environmental injustices and global dysbiosis

o   can name, describe, ask informed questions about and model phenomena and problems that are symptoms of anthropogenic environmental injustices and global dysbiosis

o   are informed by the tenants of action research and TEK.

3

Comfortably explain a meaning of traditional (or indigenous) ecological knowledge (TEK) and integrate TEK ways of knowing into your research.

4

Propose, perform and present an action research/creative project that is accessible to both scientists and non-scientists and is a call for any form of action that moves dialogue forward, and reframes the problem/s.

5

Present your research/creative work at the Action Research Network of the Americas Conference https://arnawebsite.org/

6

Explain the complex and varied interaction between social and environmental challenges, and communicate these problems to a broad and diverse audience.

7

Name, describe and demonstrate the principles of how the brain learns best in synergy with the healthy body.
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
  • Erin Bentley (PhD student in Botany and Program in Ecology and Evolution)
  • Kaj Taylor (Undergraduate majoring in Chemical Education)
  • Ali Ceretto (PhD student Botany and Program in Ecology and Evolution)
  • Izzy Bergemann (Undergraduate majoring in Civil Engineering)
  • Isabella Brown (Undergraduate majoring in Architectural Engineering)
  • Eva Smith (PhD student in Geology and Geophysics)
  • Jamison Peacock (Undergraduate student in Physiology)
  • Sammy Veauthier (Undergraduate student in Zoology)
  • Sean Kraemer (Undergraduate student in Environment and Natural Resources)
Christine N. Boggs
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
The Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio
Pictures below show Members of the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio in collaboration with University of Wyoming instructors and students.
We structured class sessions utilizing backwards course design to support the outcomes. Below is a table that lists the pre-party (our term for pre-class preparation), the class activity and the learning outcome it prepared students to master.

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.
LOOK

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.
THINK

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.
ACT

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
Acknowledging Class Diversity
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.
References