| DANA WARD | SANDY PETERS |
This course will combine lectures, discussion and computer lab sessions. Lectures will not always coincide with the reading, but the reading is designed to give you the background necessary to discuss environmental policy making. It is essential that you complete the reading assignment by class-time in order to understand the lecture and to participate in the discussions. Most of the reading will be on the internet.
To keep well informed about environmental issues and government policy, it will be necessary to read newspapers regularly. You will be shown how to subscribe to electronic newsgroups and to access a wide variety of electronic newspapers from around the world. You will be required to keep a reading log of articles read, including both assigned readings and news readings.
1) Quizzes will constitute 20% of your content grade: There will be several "surprise" quizzes covering readings, news events and previous lectures. In order to do well, you will have to take notes on lectures, review the readings, and take note of major news events before every class. These quizzes will not be announced and are designed to insure that you regularly keep up with course assignments.
2) Two "Position Papers" will constitute 20% percent of your content grade: The "Position Papers" can be no longer than two pages each. Each position paper will examine a different environmental issue. In the position paper, you must identify the controversy surrounding the issue, summarize the status of that controversy, briefly summarize a government's policy on the issue and, finally, make a specific recommendation concerning what policy should be pursued in order to deal with the environmental issue. You can find useful information and tools for this paper here.
3) A Reading log will constitute 20% of you content grade. You are required to turn in a weekly reading log. The log should list all the materials you have read during the week for this course, and each article or section of a book should be characterized in at least a sentence or two. The more elaborate you are in your log, the easier it will be to write the papers. As a rough guide, you should be reading a minimum of two hours for each content hour of class time. If you are a serious student, of course, more than two hours per content hour will be necessary to explore a topic to your satisfaction. A very good tool for your reading log can be found by clicking here, and the APA style guide can be found here. An excellent source on how to cite electronic references is here.
4) Forty percent of your content grade will be based on two exams, one covering the first half of the course, and one covering the second half of the course. There will be no final exam. The exam will be in a short answer format.
5). Internews Subscriptions: You are also required to subscribe
(it's free) to the appropriate bulletin boards on "internews", the interface for
reading "usenet". We will go over how to subscribe in class. Each week, you
must forward at least one article you have read on a clari.news bulletin board
dealing with your topics. Of course, you should list these articles in
your reading log and you may use the material for your position papers.
CONTENT REQUIREMENTS: (50% OF TOTAL GRADE)
QUIZZES = 20% POSITION PAPERS = 20% READING LOG = 20% EXAMS = 40%
ENGLISH REQUIREMENTS (50% OF TOTAL GRADE)