Courses of Interest
Spring 2009
Overview
These "Courses of Interest" are classes that sound interesting to us, and will most likely be an excellent addition to your schedule if you're trying to figure out what to take. None of these are Honors courses themselves, but they may be applicable towards the College Honors Core requirements through the Ad Hoc method. However, you must first get approval from an Honors adviser and the course instructor if you would like to take any of these courses as ad hoc (see an Honors adviser if you have questions about this). And don't forget about the Honors Program Electives Handbook.
Courses
CEP 498 - Survey of Community Service
Day/Time/Room: Th 3:30-5:00, Gould 440 (with bi-weekly field trips on Fri 1:30-5:30)
2 credits
Supervising Faculty: Professor Mark Purcell
Students from Community, Environment and Planning program are hosting an interdisciplinary seminar class for spring quarter, and we are inviting students from all over the campus to join us.
The course will examine various aspects of Community Service by inviting guest speakers from five different fields and going on biweekly active field trips to help the local communities in Seattle area. Five carefully chosen themes will be used to survey the wide spectrum of community service, and guest speakers from each field will join our seminar classes to supplement us with their insightful experiences and academic expertise. Professor Mark Purcell from College of Built Environment will supervise the course to stimulate students' intellectual challenges and provide guidance for reflections of each topics.
The five themes are:
- Community Service (Guest speaker: Jim Diers)
- Environment (Guest speaker: Rodney Pond from Restoration Ecology Network)
- Food (Guest speaker: Teresa Mares)
- Housing/Homelessness (Guest speaker: Racheal Kleit, pending)
- Education (Jenee Myers)
Biweekly active field trips are also planned for each themes, and these opportunities will serve as a bridge between academic learning and personal reflection.
All students from all disciplines are welcome to join us for this adventure!
For additional information or questions please email the course coordinator (bman2901@u.washington.edu)
OCEAN 506 A: Science & Technology Creative Nonfiction Writing
SLN 16012
Day/Time/Room: M W 2:30-3:50, OCN 425
3 credits
Instructor: Deborah L. Illman, Ph. D.
This course treats advanced forms of science and technology writing for upper division undergraduate and graduate students, and provides an opportunity for students to develop articles that may be considered for publication in Northwest Science & Technology online magazine.
We compare and contrast the structure of hard news feature to other forms of nonfiction articles that are used to present technical content to diverse audiences. Specifically, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the narrative form and examine several award-winning examples. The course provides an overview of other genres, including profile and review.
Students research and write a news feature with narrative lead as well as an article using one of the other forms treated in the class; drafts are critiqued by classmates in writing clinics.
The ultimate goal is to be able to exercise deliberate selection and control of structure and style in science writing appropriate for the content, context, and communication goal. Students keep a writing journal throughout the quarter as a tool to develop ideas and techniques, and they learn to write a query letter--a specialized form of proposal used to present a story idea to an editor.
Prerequisites: At least upper division standing and permission of instructor. Email the instructor for entry code.
ENVIR 450 B: Alaska Comes of Age: Politics, economics, and environment in 20th century Alaska
SLN 13209
Day/Time: T Th 10:30-12:30
5 credits
Instructor: Brooks Miner, Biology
As one of the last regions of the United States to be settled by European descendants, the so-called :Last Frontier" of Alaska occupies a hallowed place in our national psyche. Alaska has always represented the American West in its purest form, but in recent decades it has become an archetypal battleground in the environmental conservation movement. How did things end up this way? Why has the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge become the pièce de ésistance of both the environmentalists and the developers?
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood and 30 years after oil started flowing through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, in this course we will undertake an integrative examination of 20th century Alaska from an interdisciplinary perspective. We will focus on how the actions of economic developers, grassroots citizen organizations, and state and federal governments led to transformations in the relationship between people and the lands and waters they inhabit. In this course, students will reflect on their personal background and draw connections with the Alaskan experience to deepen their understanding of both their own and our society's relationship with the natural world. Twentieth century Alaska will serve as a case study for the American environmental legacy, allowing students to grapple with challenging questions about our nation's future in the context of a landscape that has both sustained and transformed American ideals.
Topics to be covered will include:
- Global conflicts manifest in Alaska: WWII and the Cold War
- The atomic age in Alaska: nuclear weapons testing and Project Chariot
- Native rights in Alaska: the historic settlement act and its discontents
- The oil age in Alaska: Prudhoe Bay and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline
- The modern environmental movement in America: Alaska's central role