Ithaca Seminar 100 - 10106 Saving Nature: A Look at Whales
	TR 2:35-3:50pm Friends 102
		Nancy Jacobson,  256 Ctr for Natural Sciences 274-1837  Office Hours: MTWR 4:30-5:30 pm or by appointment jacobson@ithaca.edu

The big question:  Can and should we save species?

The big goals of this course is to:

• integrate perspectives from different disciplines (biology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and law) to better interpret the current threats that face whales. This will allow you, as part of a group, to determine the most important conservation issue (and its context) for a single species and to develop solutions for it.
• idiscover what science is and the role it can play in these different disciplines.

synthesize information from a variety of sources to answer questions and understand a specific topic.  This will involve finding sources and evaluating them as to their credibility.  In other words, learning to teach yourselves – this is important both in college and long after you graduate.

Course Format:

In keeping with the course goals, there will be a lot of reading and discussing and very little lecturing.  This only works if students do the readings assigned before coming to class, have answered any questions given to help guide the reading, and come in with an open and inquisitive mind.  The bottom line is, the more you put into the class, the more you get out of it!

1. The class will divide up into four groups.  Your group will, in addition to the general class readings, focus on a specific species of whale.  This will include reading ONE of the following books (these are not in the IC Bookstore; you will need to buy a copy through Amazon.com or a similar website):

•   Killer Whales group: Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton
•   Beluga Whales group: Beluga Days by Nancy Lord
•   (North Atlantic) Right Whales group: Entanglements by Tora Johnson
•   Gray Whales group: Eye of the Whale by Dick Russell (read pages 221-514) OR
•   Gray Whales group: Eye of the Whale by Dick Russell (read pages 19-89, 136-219) and Saving the Gray Whale by Serge Dedina

3. Also buy a spiral 1-subject notebook (preferably of recycled paper) to use as a journal and a 3-ring binder (these ARE available in the IC Bookstore.)

Preliminary Schedule

Assignments (points / 100):
Note: more detailed descriptions will be made available during the semester
 

	Journal (10)
	take notes on readings – include questions or thoughts on right-hand side of page  take notes on discussions – include reflections on right-hand side  reflect on what you have learned, realized, or otherwise incorporated during the week (put a large asterisk by these so I can see them easily)
	Response papers, questions w/ answers, quizzes (2x8=16)
	these will be on various class readings
	Book review (5)
	a review of your group’s book (e.g. Listening to Whales or Eye of the Whale) will turn in to me and post a version of it to the Amazon.com site
	Short papers (4x5=20)
	these will cover a limited number of readings + class discussions a smart idea is to use your notes and thoughts from your journal to write these these will also include material on your own (group’s) whale species that is relevant to the topics covered
	Larger papers (8 + 25)
	one due at the midterm, one due the last week of class will include most of the short papers but rewritten to focus on your whale species
	Short radio feature (6)
	each group will write one  will be on what you, as a group, see as the most pressing conservation issue facing your species of whale IF any of the scripts are good enough, Finger Lakes Productions International will produce them for their radio feature Our Ocean World!
	Presentation (10)
	will be done as a group will be on what you, as a group, see as the most pressing conservation issue facing your species of whale and possible solutions.  You will need to present your case convincingly  the presenters will take on one or more roles (e.g. conservation biologists or animal-rights activists) and assign a role to the audience (e.g. oil industry or fishermen or National Marine Fisheries Service)
	Attendance ( - 2 for each missed class without a valid reason; see catalog as to what constitutes a valid reason for absence)

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Page maintained and updated by Nancy Pierce and Nancy Jacobsoon
Last updated 9/05