Welcome to ANTH 2251-30 – Environmental Anthropology

 

Catalog Description: The study of past and present human societies and their interaction with the environment. Societies are analyzed in anthropological terms according to their modes of production, social organization, and worldview. Environmental constraints and opportunities acting on cultural development are examined. Students will learn how successful adaptation to factors of climate and geography, the conservation of species, and management of available resources have contributed to sociocultural survival or collapse in documented cases.

 

This course offers 3 credits and satisfies Minnesota Transfer Credit areas 5 and 10.

 

Before Term Starts: Make sure you have explored thoroughly all the links and information provided at “Getting Started in Your Online Courses” (http://www.anokaramsey.edu/onlineProg/courses.cfm)

  • Take an online training session (available sessions are posted at the “Getting Started” site)
  • Have your Student Tech ID and password ready so that you can access our course site. Contact Information Technology if you don’t have this information.
  • Make sure that your Metnet email account is set up and that you check it often. (You can also set it to forward messages to your personal email account. Make certain that this account is fully functional!)
  • Visit the Coon Rapids Campus bookstore (either online or in person) and purchase your course books prior to Jan. 9.
  • Study the D2L Student Manual found at http://www.anokaramsey.edu/resources/pdf/it/d2lstudentmanual.pdf
  • Make sure you will have reliable access to a working computer with working internet connection!

 

Work Load Expectation: Completing requirements for this course will easily take 10 hours per week. You must feel comfortable with long reading assignments and being tested by means of essays. Budget your time so that you can keep up and do all of the reading and assignments. We will not be using a traditional text book. (There are none available that suit my purpose.) Instead, I will guide you through our readings with study questions, useful internet links, and additional written “lecture” text. You will find all this on our course home page. In addition, you will be expected to:

 

  • post at least one quality discussion commentary (on the designated theme) per week
  • take a weekly test (after the first week) consisting mostly of essay questions
  • complete a research project that involves creating an annotated bibliography on an environmental anthropology topic of your choice

 

There will be no final exam.

 

I will ask you to submit your research project for comments and advice for improvement before you need to submit it for a grade.

 

You will not need to come on campus to complete any part of the course work although you may find that you will want to visit the library in order to complete the bibliography project satisfactorily. It is possible to do the entire project online, however, or you may visit any other research library available to you. Most college and university libraries will allow you free access to their book and periodical shelves, reference materials, and certain online databases while you are visiting the library in person.

 

Required Reading: We will read the following four books together. There is no standard textbook. (Transfer students: this course provides good preparation for taking upper level liberal arts courses.)

 

1. VanWynsberghe, Robert M. (2002) AlterNatives. Community, Identity, and Environmental Justice on Walpole Island. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. (ISBN 0205349528)

 

2. Fratkin, Elliot M. (2004) Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya, 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. (ISBN 0205391427)

 

3. Netting, Robert M. (1986) Cultural Ecology, 2nd ed. Prospect Hts., IL: Waveland Press, Inc. (ISBN 0881332046)

 

4. Fagan, Brian (2004) The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. New York: Basic Books. (available now in paperback)

 

Syllabus: This will be made available on our D2L Course Home page on the first day of class.

 

Working with D2L: We have in the past experienced frustrating problems with D2L. It is a huge system and has had numerous “bugs.” Keep your D2L manual handy, and be sure that you follow directions. Always read my directions (when taking tests, etc.). Contact me by email or page (email is usually faster) when you have problems. Also,

  • Contact the D2L Helpdesk when you have technical problems (do leave a voice mail message if a human does not answer).
  • D2L administrators always post warnings of planned service outages (as opposed to the emergency ones) on your D2L Home Page.
  • Remember to read these notices and work around the outages.
  • Most Important: Save copies of all your course work on your personal disks or hard drives. Keep everything until the course is over.
  • Likewise: Compose all discussion posts offline in a word processing document and then copy and paste your text into the D2L Discussion box. Many students (and myself!) have lost long posts when the send function failed to work.