Tentative Schedule
August 26—Introduction. Diagnostic essay—“What would people be surprised to know
about you?”
Assignment: Read “Evaluating Children’s Literature” and make a comprehensive list of
the criteria.
August 28—Evaluations. Evaluate a children’s book and create a handout.
Assignment: Create a set of evaluation criteria for your learning team (goals,
expectations).
September 2—Thesis statement and structure.
Assignment: Write an evaluation essay of learning teams (goals, expectations).
September 4—Introductions and Conclusions. Peer review and revision.
Assignment: Read “Understanding the Soil Ecosystem” (Smillie and Gershuny 7-51),
taking notes.
September 9—Prioritizing information. Working in groups, negotiate what a beginning
gardener needs to know in order to understand the soil ecosystem.
September 11—Elements of Design and set of evaluation criteria for presentations.
Assignment: Create a Power Point presentation for the information.
September 16—Work Day.
September 18—Peer Review of PowerPoint presentation and revision.
Assignment: Finalize your presentation and read “Cash Crops” (Schwenke 46-58) and
“Other Cash & Specialty Crops” (Schwenke 59-72), taking notes.
Saturday trip to the Des Moines Farmers’ Market.
September 23—Marketing. Ron Deiter. Cindy Madsen? Don Adams and Nan Bonfils?
Assignment: Read “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” by Terry Tempest Williams
(Anderson and Runciman 569-575).
September 25—Discussion and final project assignment. Choose a crop that you
would like to grow and begin researching it (item and its growing requirements). Give
me a report in two weeks.
Assignment: Read “Learning from Love Canal: A Twentieth-Anniversary Retrospective”
(Anderson and Runciman 550-554).
September 30—Discussion and ?
Assignment: Read “Animals” (Anderson and Runciman 326-347).
October 2—Discussion of text and personal cases (Bring in newspaper and magazine
clippings). Write a paper on how humans effect their environment. Explain how a case
can be made that how humans effects their environment can effect humans. Refer to a
case that you know personally. Goal: Reflection, citations, thesis, and structure.
Assignment: Read “Forest of Voices” (Anderson and Runciman 403-416).
October 7—Discussion and ?
Assignment: Read “Out of the Woods” (Anderson and Runciman 382-389) and “We’re
Scraping Bottom” (Anderson and Runciman 350-352).
October 9—?
Read: “A Life in Our Hands” (Anderson and Runciman 263-280).
Initial crop report due. Have a class discussion about it. Continue to research this crop—
what does a farmer need to provide and when for this crop? Report due in two weeks.
October 14—?
Assignment: Read “Clear Progress: 25 Years of the Clean Water Act” (Anderson and
Runciman 390-402).
October 16—?
Assignment: Read “The Land Ethic” (Anderson and Runciman 450-464).
October 21—Career Day
Assignment: Read “A Fragile Kingdom” (Anderson and Runciman 255-262).
October 23—Synthesis.
Second crop report due. Have a class discussion about it. Continue to research the crop.
October 28— Guest lecturer (Zhao, John Miranowski, Kathryn Kling). Discussion—how
can economics work to solve environmental problems? A few case studies for the
students to solve?
October 30—Meet at the Butterfly Conservatory and have guest lecturer on Ethics in
Agriculture—Arne Hollam (chair). Ethical issues—have the professors come up with
several ethical dilemmas and have the students try to solve them. PRESENT this at the
end of the semester.
Assignment: Read “Observing and Evaluating Soil” (Smillie and Gershuny 52-79),
taking notes.
November 4—Dr. Manu.
November 6—Writing a report of soil tests.
Assignment: Read “Farm Machinery” (Smillie and Gershuny 23-35) and “Farm
Practices” (Smillie and Gershuny 36-45).
November 11—Peer review. Paraphrase and summary. Working in pairs, create a howto explanation of the order of things from farrow to harvest that includes the equipment
and approximate times.
Assignment: Read “Soil Management Practices” (Smillie and Gershuny 80-138) and
finalize your soil report.
November 13—Documentation. Connect the reading to the soil report you have and
come up with a soil management plan for your farm.
Assignment: Bring your crop reports and all your research materials to class.
November 18—Connect your crop to your soil material.
November 20—In-house workshop on final project.
Thanksgiving Break.
December 2—Presentations.
December 4—Presentations.
December 9—Evaluations.
December 11—Evaluations.