Here is a sampling of screenshots from my Environmental Communication (COMM 5360) course, taught online in Summer 2014. I organized the
course into four manageable units, providing links on our homepage to course content via weekly modules. Each module had a dedicated Wiki
page, organized with the following elements: Lesson Title, Introduction and Quotes to Ponder, Lesson Objectives, Assigned Readings, Recorded
Lectures and Supplementary Items to Extend Students’ Thinking, Application & Action Items (assignments and tasks). Sample recorded lectures
and assignment descriptions are available under the “Teaching” section of my digital dossier: www.kphunt.wordpress.com
Week 1 Study Guide: How are Environmental Beliefs Formed?
An Introduction to the Formation
of Environmental Beliefs
Please carefully read the chapter in our textbook and electronic readings, review the lesson
objectives and related materials prior to completing the assignments, assessments, and/or
discussions associated with this lesson. Your preparation prior to attempting the action components
(assignments, assessments, and/or discussions) will assist you in completing these in a timely
manner. The lesson's learning objectives/outcomes provide an overview of the key points to the
lesson.
A quote to ponder:
"A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune
that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is
dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood."- Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring
By the conclusion of this learning module, each student will be able to:
1. Define environmental ideology, and environmental self.
Learning
2. Understand the importance of experience with the natural world and self-identity.
Objectives/Outcomes
3. Explain how a personal environmental belief system develops.
4. Assess and reflect on one's personal environmental identity.
Communicating Nature (Corbett, 2006) Textbook: Chapter 1
eReadings:
Assigned Readings
Cantrill "Environmental Self & Sense of Place
Excerpt from Richard Louv's
"
Last Child In the Woods
Lecture Video: The Formation of Environmental Beliefs
[Recorded Lecture embedded here]
Lecture Notes: The Formation of Environmental Beliefs_slides
Optional items to extend your thinking:
Lecture
-Watch the preview for an interesting documentary that explores 'nature deficit disorder' through a
wilderness education experience: Play Again (Links to an external site.).
-What about a sense of place and outer space? Watch former astronaut Joseph P. Allen discuss his
sense of place in his TedX talk:TedX (Links to an external site.)
[Link to Video embedded here]
1. Comprehension Quiz: complete the Week 1 quiz.
Application
&
Action Items
2. Assess and reflect on your own Environmental Identity. Complete this short
assignment.
3. Begin thinking about your Environmental Ethnography Project. Review the
assignment description for choosing your ethnography site. This assignment is due on May
30, but you should begin conceptualizing your project as early as possible.
Week 5 Study Guide: How can Environmental Attitudes/Behavior be Studied
Through Ethnography?
Using Ethnography to Study Environmental
Attitudes & Behavior
A quote to ponder:
“I want to understand the world from your point of view. I want to know
what you know in the way you know it. I want to understand the meaning of
your experience, to walk in your shoes, to feel things as you feel them, to
explain things as you explain them. Will you become my teacher and help
me understand?” - James P. Spradley
By the conclusion of this learning module, each student will be able to:
Learning
Objectives/Outcomes
1. Define ethnography, jottings & field notes, and field note tales.
2. Be familiar with major assumptions of ethnographic research.
3. Understand the major elements of doing ethnographic research.
4. Complete meta-analysis (critique) of examples of "good" & "bad"
ethnography.
*We are taking a brief detour from our textbook for focused reading on
ethnography.
All of the pieces listed below are required reading for Week 5:
Geertz
: conceptual essay on studying cultural dynamics and writing thick
description
Assigned Readings
Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, Ch. 1
& Ch. 2
: a comprehensive "how-to"
on doing ethnography, writing jottings in the research scene and field
notes for analysis
Van Maanen, Tales from the Field
: excerpts on composing specific types
of field note tales
Pezzullo, Toxic Tours in
"Cancer Alley"
: example of a published
ethnographic analysis on environmental communication issues
Lecture Video: (So sorry for the delay!)
Lecture
[Recorded Lecture embedded here]
Lecture Notes: Week 5 Lecture Notes_Doing Ethnography
Extra (strongly recommended) items to help with field notes:
Vanderbilt University's tips for writing ethnographic field notes
Carbaugh
, Ethnography and Intercultural Communication: more
information in the interpretation of culture through ethnography
Sample field notes written by Katie
. Review these to see (a) what
complete field notes look and read like, (b) read examples of each field note
tale, (c) notice how personal reflections are [bracketd] off from observations.
1. Comprehension Quiz. Due by 11:59pm on Sunday, June 15.
2. Ethnography Meta-Analysis: complete the reading response assignment,
using Pezzullo's "Cancer Alley" article
Application
&
Action Items
. This assignment is DUE by
11:59pm on Friday, June 13.
3. Environmental Beliefs Interview & Paper - complete your interview and
continue working on your analysis. Paper DUE June 20.
4. Ethnography Project Field Notes: You should begin completing
observations for your project. See assignment description. Field notes DUE
July 5.
Week 11 Study Guide: Communicating About Food
Special Topic: Communicating About Food
This is my favorite special topic because it is my research area! Our food system is a complex
construction that we encounter at social, cultural, economic, and biological levels EVERY SINGLE
DAY. Although the field of Environmental Communication has been slow to take up issues of
food, there is rich conversation and debate in works published by well-recognized scholarpractitioners operating in the public sphere. If you have seen almost any food-related
documentary in the last 10 years, you have probably seen some of our authors on screen!
Some quotes to ponder:
"Eating is an agricultural act." -Wendell Berry, famous environmental essayist
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan, popular environmental journalist
"You can tell a lot about about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans" - Ronald
Reagan, former U.S. President
By the conclusion of this learning module, each student will be able to:
Learning
Objectives/Outcomes
1. Define food politics and food justice.
2. Understand the communicative elements that make up the global food system.
3. Explain how food justice operates as a specific system of communication.
4. Critically consider your own participation in this system.
eReadings:
Because there is no food chapter in our course textbook, all of our readings for this week are
excerpts from other published works.
FOOD is a broad area of environmental communication. Therefore, the readings for this week
are broken up by sub-topic. Everyone must read the first two items, then you can choose a subarea of interest to you and read one of the pieces listed there (you will need that piece for this
week's comprehension quiz).
Everyone read the following:
Assigned Readings
Marion Nestle, Introduction from Food Politics
Gottlieb & Joshi, Introduction from Food Justice
Sub-topic #1: The Industrial Food System
Michael Pollan, Introduction from An Eater's Manifesto
Mark Winne, "Industrial Food System: Ministry of Plenty or Department of Destruction?"
from Food Rebels, Gorilla Gardeners, & Smart Cookin' Mamas
Sub-Topic #2: International Food System Issues
Samir Amin & Eric Holt-Giminez, Preface and Introduction from Food Movements
Unite: Strategies to Transform our Food System
Vandana Shiva, Introduction and "Soy Imperialism" case study from Stolen Harvest: The
Hijacking of the Global Food Supply
Sub-Topic #3: Food & Agricultural Production
Gottlieb & Joshi, excerpt from "Growing and Producing Food" in Food Justice
Cindy Spurlock, "Performing and Sustaining Agriculture" article
Sub-Topic #4: Food & Poverty
Mark Winne, "Income Disparities, Poverty, and the Food Gap" from
Closing the Food Gap
Janet Poppendieck, "Charity for All" from Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food & the end of
Entitlement
Sub-Topic #5: Food & Consumption
Raj Patel, "Checking out of Supermarkets" from Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the
World Food System
Sustan Bordo, "Hunger as Ideology" from Eating Culture
Lecture Video: "Socially Constructing the Food System"
[Recorded Lecture Embedded Here]
Lecture Notes: Socially Constructing the Food System_notes
Lecture
Optional items to extend your thinking:
Test your Food Literacy with this handy quiz (Links to an external site.), courtesy of Food Day
Food Tank lists "24 TED Talks that Will Help Save the Food System" (Links to an external site.)
Eric Holt-Giminez of Food First spoke at the U's Social Soup Series in September 2013. He
provides a comprehensive overview of global food activism (and, yes, that's me nervously
delivering his introduction!): [Video embedded here]
Interested in the politics of food assistance? Consider taking the Food Stamp Challenge. Read
this short op-ed
, and check out this toolkit
.
Food Tank lists their top picks for 2013's best food books (Links to an external site.).
1. Comprehension Quiz: This is your final weekly quiz! Most questions will cover the readings
required for everyone to read (Gottlieb & Joshi, Nestle); this week's quiz will also include specific
items related to the sub-topic reading you selected for yourself. Please complete your quiz by
11:59pm on Sunday, July 27.
2. Ethnography Project: Thematic Outline: this is the 4th step in your Ethnography Project, at
which you are invited to begin planning for your final analysis. You can refer to the Ethnography
Resources folder (under the FILES tab) for extra resources, including a sample blank outline
Application
&
Action Items
and visual depiction of a former student's coding and themes
,
. Read the task description
carefully, your Thematic Outline is due by 11:59pm on Sunday, July 27.
3. Ethnography Project: Final Ethnography: this is the 5th and last step in your semester
project! You should treat this as a comprehensive final exam for this course. You are expected to
draw from concepts and insights from our course materials, as well as reference supporting
material you have researched yourself, to write a cogent analysis of environmental
communication dynamics you observed at your research site. Please read the task description,
submission requirements, and grading criteria very carefully. Though our summer term ends on
Wednesday, July 30, your final ethnography may be submitted via Canvas anytime until
11:59pm on Friday, August 1.