NR 260
Wetlands
Ecology and Management
Class
Project
A requirement for completion of NR 260 is the
production
of a web site focused on a wetland or wetland region of the student's
choice. Case studies are excellent
vehicles for gaining understanding of how physical, chemical and
biological processes combine to give an ecosystem its character and how
human activities modify ecosystems.
The primary purpose of this project is to involve the student in
a
case study that will integrate knowledge of wetlands gained in class
with
details obtained from the literature and other web sites.
A secondary purpose of the project is more technical, and
practical.
Web sites are an important medium in today's world.
A well-educated person should be as capable of conversing
through
this medium as writing for print or giving public speeches. This project will ensure that class members
are familiar
with use of web site software, and also know how to create links, scan
images,
and import material in electronic form. In
addition,
some previously acquired skills - writing, artistic design and
searching
for information on the Internet and in the library- will be called into
play. Students should come away from the
class with the
skills needed to set up a web site for a favorite club, business or
NGO.
Each web site should contain the elements listed
below.
It often works best to put each topic on a separate page, with links
between
pages but you may combine a two or more related topics on a page, if they seem too short when
alone.
Pictures on each page are a great plus. The numbers in
italics
indicate the points allotted to each page in 2004, when I had students
turn
in first the Natural History then the Human Interactions sections and
assigned
each 100 points. In 2005 there will be three deadlines, and the
opportunity
to negotiate point allotment and the order of topic completion (within
limits).
This will be discussed more in class.
Elements to be included in each web site:
A. A home page (always named index.html and placed within a folder on
your
public html called nr260)
It should have a title,
introductory
paragraph and links to the other pages, and indicate authorship. 10
B. A biography of the author (you)
At a
minimum
indicate that you are a student at UVM in a particular major. Many
students
also write about where they come from,
their families, their pets, their passions
outside
school, career goals, etc. 10
C. Natural History, with subsections on the following:
1. The wetland's
location
(include a map) 5
2. The geology of
the
site (including how the wetland was formed, or why it exists) 7
3. Climatic
conditions
5
4. The wetland's
hydrology
7
5. The type of
vegetation
present 13
6. Common animal
life
13
7. Ecological
functions,
such as rate of primary productivity, nutrient retention, detritus
trapping
or export, flood control, corridor for migration, etc. 5
D. Human Interactions
1. Indigenous
peoples
use of the wetland 5
2. History of use/exploitation since European discovery (for an American wetland; for a Eurasian wetland you may want to divide D1 and D2 differently)
Include discussion
of settlement in the area, activities such as draining/filling, water
diversions,
logging, road building, peat mining, hunting and fishing 15
3. Current Issues
Describe current stresses on the wetland
and controversies regarding what is to be done. Be thorough; try to say
something
about all relevant
issues, rather than focusing on one, and bring out different points of
view.
20
4. Concluding Remarks
Summarize the wetland's condition and speculate as to
what the future may hold; make recommendations 5
5. Reference page (or Bibliography)
Listing of sources of information
and
pictures 20
Points also are assigned for site readibility (20), visual
appeal
(20), organization (especially ease of movement between pages, 20).
The total number of points in 2004 was 200.
It may be that students will not find extensive information on all of
the
topics above. In some cases a little
extrapolation may be in order. For
example, if you are examining
salt marshes in Connecticut but have no information on invertebrate
life,
you can write about the fauna of New England marshes in general. And of course your pictures of different
species
of animals and plants need not necessarily come from the wetland under
analysis.
Wetland choice is very important;
it
determines how easily you find material. Size, location and
controversary
are all factors that determine whether the wetland has been studied.
For
example, if you choose the Everglades for study, you will easily access
information
on all topics, because this marsh is the largest in North America, has
been
severely degraded by human activity and is undergoing
reconstruction.
At the other extreme may be that little
vernal
pool in your hometown that you are fond of. While you may want to learn
more
about it, this may not be the time. Chances are that its flora
and
fauna have not been described, and that the greatest controversy may
have
been some bozo dumping his garbage into it.
My suggestion is to make a "short list" of
wetlands
you may want to study, then do enough searching on the web or in the
library
to know that material exists on both natural and social aspects of
the
wetland before you make your final choice.
A sampling of suitable wetlands follows:
1. The "prairie
potholes"
of the north central US and central Canada (here you might narrow the
area
encompassed to include just the potholes of the Dakotas, say, or of a
particular
Canadian province),
2. The Everglades
(a real
hotbed of wetland controversies; this region might be sub-divided among
two
or three students)
3. The Kissimmee
(north
of the Everglades, and under reconstructed)
3. The Louisiana
Delta
region (several possible wetlands here)
4. The wetlands of
California's
Central Valley
5. The salt marshes
of
San Francisco Bay
6. The "pocosins"
(bays)
of North and South Carolina
7. The Pantanal of
Brazil
8. The mangroves of
south
Florida
9.
The Okefenokee
in
south Georgia
10.
The Great
Dismal
Swamp of Virginia/North Carolina
11. The salt marshes of Puget Sound
12. Alaska’s muskeg
This list is very far from exhaustive. Its purpose is just to give you an idea of
what to
look for. Many students have had great
success
examining smaller wetlands in urban areas. One caution: you
must
choose a wetland. Web sites on lakes,
rivers,
marine bays or terrestrial ecosystems will get no points.
I would like to avoid having multiple students
working
on the same wetland, unless the wetland is large enough to be divided
into
portions. The idea is to avoid both
competition
for library books and students "borrowing" information or images from
another
student's site. With the web sites open to
class scrutiny the latter could be tempting. You
can
“claim” a site by emailing the instructor, who will enter your name and
wetland
on the “Student Websites” page of the class web site (look here to see
if
a wetland is already claimed).
You may wish to begin your project by looking at
maps
or nature magazines (e.g., Audubon or National Geographic) to find
names
of potentially interesting wetlands. You
also
might enter general terms like "wetland", "bog", or "mangrove", into an
Internet
search engine and see what you find at the sites you are sent to. Or you might control the social part of your
paper
by entering a type of stress and the term "wetland".
There are multiple wetland linkage sites now that you can cruise
through in a less selective manner as well. Just
enter
"wetlands" and off you will go.
Once you have a list of "finalists" for your
study,
you can check out the availability of information on each by:
1. Doing an
Internet search
(or continuing what you've started). If
you don't have a favorite search engine, try www.google.com. I
like it because you can call up images as well as web sites. This feature could come in handy later when
you are
looking for a picture of a salamander or whatever for one of your pages.
2. Going to the UVM
web
page, clicking on libraries and then on "find books" or "find
articles".
Many of the literature search engines provide abstracts of
journal
articles. My favorite is Water
Resource
Abstracts (under the environmental sub-heading). Books are available in
the
library on some of the larger wetlands (there is more than one on
the
Everglades and the Okefenokee).
3. Don't be afraid
to
write to state and federal offices about sites. They
may be willing to send you pamphlets and reports about the wetland. The Vermont Wetlands Office (part of DEC) has
helped
a number of former NR 260 students obtain information on local wetlands
for
papers they have written.
The Wetlands Hotline (1-800-832-7828) is a
useful
clearinghouse regarding environmental issues and regulations. If you want to learn what happened to some
bill you've
read about in a two-year-old article, you can telephone them and
probably
find out.
You must acknowledge sources of
information
and pictures. Picture acknowledgements are probably best made as a line
under
each image. Information sources may be noted at the end of each
section,
or you may create a separate reference page. Below is the proper
procedure
for the referencing of articles and books:
Author((S) name(S). Year of publication. Article title. Journal name and volume number: page numbers.
e.g.: Butcher,
J. 1950. Where
does bacon
come from? Agriculture News 5: 9-50.
For an article in a book, use this format:
Butcher, J. 1950. Where does bacon come from?
p. 9-50. In: R.T.
Johnson (ed.). The sources of food. Springer,Verlag, N.Y.
(i.e., author, year, article title, page
numbers,
editor, book title, publisher, location of publisher)
For a book, give the total number of pages in
the
reference:
e.g., Butcher, J. 1950. Where does
bacon
come from? Springer Verlag, N.Y. 95 p.
Web sites should be referenced with address and
date.
The UVM Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)
is
committed to working with this class through their TechCats Program. They will be providing
us with
classes on web design during the last two weeks of February. Half of the class will attend on Feb. 16 and
23;
the
other half on Feb. 18 and 25. Katie Chang, our TechCat, also will
offer
small group or individual help sessions following the classes. It
is important that you understand that Katie
is a student like yourself and will not be able to focus all her time
with
you on the last days before sites are graded. Spread this project out
over
the semester!!
Your web site will be graded three times during
the
semester: on March
7, and April 4 and 20. The
first grading will
be on your title page (including links to blank sections) and
biography.
The idea here is to prompt you to choose a wetland and start the
site
early on.
Half of the remaining material will be due on
the
subsequent two dates. The website is worth
35%
of your grade.
Students are encouraged to visit other students'
sites,
both to get ideas and to provide feedback. This
class is not competitive. There are no
"curves"
involved in the grading. You cannot harm
your
grade by helping others.