We’ve reached the end of the class. Thanks for going along with this experiment. The online environment is not even close to a real one (called face-to-face or F2F). However, I’m hoping that you know more than you knew before and have some tools and knowledge to think about conservation differently.

The Exam comes up as the last Blog entry. It will be available on Monday at 9 AM May 4th. I will pose the question there, and your comment will be your final exam entry. If you need to include an image (or concept map), you can do that by sending it to me and I’ll put a link to it in the comment. The Blog tool doesn’t allow images in comments.

You can work individually or in pairs. If you work in pairs, please “sign” the comment with both names as the commenting software just puts one name there. The final exam comment is due Friday May 8th but you can post it at any time.

Good luck and have fun.

Progress indicated below:

One more reading and then a final exercise. This week we consider an even larger scale ecological issue, continental-scale conservation. At the end of the week, we will try to make some sense of what we learned these past 10 weeks. Your final exercise will be to develop a reasonable description of your individual zeitgeist (world view) and ontological position with respect to conservation (how you find meaning).

The hope is that you will continue to ask questions about conservation as an activity. How is it working? What is it achieving? How does it fit into the totality of social activity and expression? It will evolve, and you along with it.

Progress indicated below:

We have one more week of class after this week, and then a final exercise. The “semester” is short for those of you at PKU because UVM started on January 12 and PKU started on February 16th. UVM has its exam period ending May 8th.

This week we consider reading a scientific paper combining applied ecology and conservation. For the second half of the week, we will look at making some more sense out of the interesting concept maps that you have prepared. Next week we will end the reading with consideration of “continental-scale” conservation. In the final week we will try to wrap up the diversity of ideas you have been thinking about.

NOTE: This week is Earth Week in the U.S. It is also Focus the Nation Week at the University of Vermont (Focus the Nation is a national movement at U.S. universities to talk and teach about climate change). Please engage in some activities that work to conserve life on Earth and counter activities that are bringing on climate change.

Progress indicated below:

At this point in the class, we can not divorce conservation action from the people impacted by the actions. The tensions between human and “nature’s” use of resources, especially land resources, are at the forefront of any planning, regulation, legislation, and private/public action. Your work on the history of conservation indicates trends in the development of the conservation ideal and how different groups of people have been involved and impacted over time. Your concept maps of conservation help organize this complex set of events, but also reflect the many different ways that conservation connects to society. As with many social activities, often there are “winners” and “losers.” This week we will consider some potential losers that lack both political and economic power... because they are poor.

I have also provided some suggestions in the assignment instructions on how you can efficiently work through the assignment. If you can stick with the time limits, you can manage this assignment in your busy lives. This is important to success in the long-term.

Progress indicated below:

As you all have noted in both your history of conservation (China and the U.S.) and your current definitions of conservation, this activity is woven deeply into society, by being important to people and important to the natural systems that support people. Because it has to do so much with values as well as ecosystem and landscape function, conservation is first political and then informed by science. The first U.S. National Parks were established because of their unique beauty, not because of scientific data documenting how important they are for ecosystem services or biodiversity.

The role of science in conservation, especially land conservation, and even biodiversity conservation, will probably always be a point of contention, whether the project be initiated by government, private citizens, or non-profit organizations. This week we look at one of those controversies, evidence-based conservation. Science - policy controversies fill the literature with issues such as: 1) scientific risk assessment vs. public tolerance for risk (e.g., people would much rather risk dying from automobile accidents than a nuclear accident), 2) scientific management vs. freedom or access (e.g., commercial fisherman would much rather compete for the last fish than regulate the harvest), 3) scientific future projections vs. current gratification (e.g., science of climate change vs. economics of oil and coal).

Conclusion? Perhaps it is more important to know your people (e.g., psychology, sociology, political science) than know your science?

Progress indicated below:

Hi folks... sorry for the late announcement. I’ve been struggling with how to bring the class closer together on these assignments. The summaries, syntheses, comments, and wiki group work function best when everyone is synchronized in time. This is not happening and is perhaps getting worse. So FIRST, I need some feedback from you on what the obstacles to timely participation are, so maybe I can help fix that. We only have a month left and I know that there are valuable insights that you can get from having these discussions together. SECOND, I’m doing a “CATCH UP HOLIDAY.” No assignments until next Monday April 6th. THIRD, I’m going to add a 5th item to the “rubric” for the Blogging comments (see below or COURSE BLOG from the HomePage).

FROM THE WEB:
“In evaluating your responses (those comments usually due on Tuesday or Thursday), we will be looking for: 1) do you address the questions or directions, 2) is your answer logical and organized, 3) do you use any evidence from other work to support any statements you make, 4) if applicable, do you make connections to other readings and assignments, and 5) are your contributions submitted on time? We often call these evaluation criteria "grading rubrics." These are helpful in focusing your writing.

In evaluating your summaries and syntheses (those comments usually due on Wednesday or Friday, we will be looking for 1) the completeness of your summary, 2) how well it is organized, 3) the thoughtfulness and depth of your thinking, and 4) are they submitted on time. In the final analysis, it is not so important how much you know (as we all have many gaps in our knowledge), but what you can do with both what you know and DON'T know, that can lead to understanding... and even wisdom.“

Progress indicated below:

We are half-way through the class. I’m hoping that you are finding the readings and discussion useful in forming your own ideas about what conservation is, how it relates to other environmental activities, and what kind of approaches we might take to achieving conservation goals. If you have comments and suggestions on how this online class experiment is proceeding, please let me know as a mid-point is always a good time to “take stock.”

Working on the wiki is going to be increasingly more important, so I hope that you visit it often to add your comments and ideas to the emerging statements that you and your group are moving towards. Keeping up with the work so that you are “synchronized” with your group and the other students is also VERY important, so even if you only spend 10-15 minutes checking in with the group, that is helpful.

Progress indicated below:

Welcome back to the UVM students, who I'm sure had a nice break somewhere. While you were gone, the PKU students reviewed the Five-S TNC conservation strategy and looked at their statement about "conservation by design." In addition, they became familiar with the class Wiki at Wikispaces.com. We needed to move to a completely new Wiki as PBwiki is blocked in China. Wikispaces is set up as a private Wiki just for the class. UVM students will get an invitation to Wikispaces ASAP. We will be working with class Wiki for the second part of this week to further explore the concept of "conservation."

FYI

Thanks for the pictures. If you go to the "People" link from the class HomePage, you'll see that I took your introductions and pictures and put them together by "Buddies." If you have not yet sent me a picture... please do.

The University of Vermont (UVM) students are on break this week (March 9-13), so just the PKU students will be working this week (see Assignments). I have just one regular reading (a long one), and then we will try out the Wiki. The UVM students already know how to use the class Wiki, so if you run into trouble, email or Skype your Buddy. I have set up a computer with Skype in the UVM computer laboratory for the students. I'm hoping that you have access to some webcams at PKU. If not let me know and I can talk to Professor HanLing to make some available.

I have also posted the assignment log below. If I have missed something that you have posted on the Blog, please let me know. Also, if you have comments about the course, please email me (Deane).

I think that we are getting familiar with the online approach and Blogging technology. Please EMail me to let me know if you have posted and I have missed it (see the excel sheet below). In addition, I think the PKU students that want to stay with the course have are now signed up for the rest of the term. At this point, I would like to ask you to send me a small picture of yourself that I can post on the class website, so that we can see each other. You can be doing anything you want in the picture (or nothing). As you have seen already, I included a picture of myself holding a "Dolly Varden" fish in Alaska. As that was in Grizzly Bear country, I did not EAT the fish, but put it gently back in the stream after catching it. If I had cooked the fish, the several bears that we saw along the stream would have certainly wanted a taste of it (and maybe me too). You can email me the picture at screen resolution (I don't need 1 mb files)... but if you don't know what I mean by "screen" resolution (72 dpi)... just email a picture and I'll deal with it. If you have already sent me a picture, thanks!

I have logged in your comments and summaries. Please let me know if you have posted and I have missed it or you've had some trouble getting the comment to show up in the Blog. Just email me... and also try again. See the excel sheet below:

I also hope that you can post a response to your group assignment (Group A or Group B). Your Group assignment is listed on the "Assignment" link from the class homepage. It is important to get this comment in by Tuesday at 10 AM Beijing time. If you are having trouble reading the amount of material I have assigned or are having trouble understanding the video, please let me (Deane.Wang@uvm.edu) know about this. I look forward to seeing your comments posted on the class Blog.

The course will be conducted via this website, a course blog, and a course wiki, and other Internet communication tools, such as EMail and Skype (see more in the syllabus).