Tentative Schedule
1August 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.
2August 28—Evaluations. Evaluate a children’s book and create a handout.
Assignment: Create a set of evaluation criteria for your learning team (goals,
expectations).
3September 2—Thesis statement and structure.
Assignment: Write an evaluation essay of learning teams (goals, expectations).
4September 4—Introductions and Conclusions. Peer review and revision.
Assignment: Read “Understanding the Soil Ecosystem” (Smillie and Gershuny 7-51),
taking notes.
5September 9—Prioritizing information. Working in groups, negotiate what a beginning
gardener needs to know in order to understand the soil ecosystem.
6September 11—Elements of Design and set of evaluation criteria for presentations.
Assignment: Create a Power Point presentation for the information.
7September 16—Work Day.
8September 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.
9September 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).
10September 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).
11September 30—Discussion and ?
Assignment: Read “Animals” (Anderson and Runciman 326-347).
12October 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).
13October 7—Discussion and ?
Assignment: Read “Out of the Woods” (Anderson and Runciman 382-389) and “We’re
Scraping Bottom” (Anderson and Runciman 350-352).
14October 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.
15October 14—?
Assignment: Read “Clear Progress: 25 Years of the Clean Water Act” (Anderson and
Runciman 390-402).
16October 16—?
Assignment: Read “The Land Ethic” (Anderson and Runciman 450-464).
17October 21—Career Day
Assignment: Read “A Fragile Kingdom” (Anderson and Runciman 255-262).
18October 23—Synthesis.
Second crop report due. Have a class discussion about it. Continue to research the crop.
19October 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?
20October 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.
21November 4—Dr. Manu.
22November 6—Writing a report of soil tests.
Assignment: Read “Farm Machinery” (Smillie and Gershuny 23-35) and “Farm
Practices” (Smillie and Gershuny 36-45).
23November 11—Peer review. Paraphrase and summary. Working in pairs, create a
how-to 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.
24November 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.
25November 18—Connect your crop to your soil material.
26November 20—In-house workshop on final project.
Thanksgiving Break.
27December 2—Presentations.
28December 4—Presentations.
29December 9—Evaluations.
30December 11—Evaluations.
Final exam