Photo by Chris Jordan

FS 102 PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION - SECTION 05
SPRING 2007
CLIMATE CHANGE, ART AND ACTIVISM: THE HEAT IS ON....OR IS IT?
Tuesday and Thursday 9:30 - 10:45
Doane Hall of Art Room

Professor Amara Geffen
A205 Doane Hall of Art 332-3379
ageffen@allegheny.edu
ageffen@alltel.net
Office Hours: Tuesday 11:00 - 1:00 and Thursday 3:30 - 4:30 others by appointment
Please use email to schedule appointments! If you have made an appointment and do not need it, please email me to cancel it!

Check your email regularly as I do communicate with my classes via email. This will be especially true later in the semester as our work heats up!

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Tentative Schedule
Course Objectives
Assignments
Books/Readings
Links
Grading
Honor Code
Assignment Policies

Tentative Schedule
Expect changes as this will be developed as the semester progresses...
Check often!!!

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Course Objectives
The First Year/Sophomore seminars are designed to provide you with opportunities to develop communication and research skills that will be useful for generating, exploring, defending, and challenging ideas. John Dewey believed that we learn most effectively through active engagement. Consequently action and experience are often the best teachers. As a result, this course will emphasize active learning, collaboration (needed for experiences to occur), as well as the application and development of critical thinking and organizational skills. As you can imagine, you are likely to need all of these skill sets to succeed in the classes you will take while at Allegheny.. What's more, you will need these skills in order to secure the job of your dreams. The idea is that if you can develop solid research and critical thinking, writing, and speaking skilsl, and if you can learn how to mobilize and collaborate for specific outcomes, you should be able to achieve whatever you aim for.

While FS 101 courses are designed to emphasize descriptive and analytical writing, in FS 102 we will emphasize persuasive writing and the development of good arguments. In thinking about how best to structure this course I considered a number of topics and selected Climate Change as a focal point for our work because our nation seems not to have come to grips with the enormity of the challenges we face if we do not curb emissions of greenhouse gases and even more deeply reconsider and reinvent how we live on this amazing planet.

The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that we humans have a measurable impact on global emissions, which in turn affect climate. In the face of this data, persistent arguments remain questioning the idea that our contributions to global warming will lead to destruction of life as we know it. Despite this, there is a growing international movement of citizens at all levels (governmental, policy, local, family, etc) who believe that we must develop new ways to live on planet Earth, and that inventing new systems will involve nothing short of an extreme makeover for how we do business, travel, heat our homes, structure our work, etc. To invent this level of change will require application of critical thinking skills that allow us to sort through the debates. In addition, strong writing and speaking skills will be required to convince others to pay attention, step up to the plate and become part of the solution! As Bob Dylan said,

"Come gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that
the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is
worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or
you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a
changing.....

Come mothers and
fathers all over this land
And don't criticize what
you can't understand
Your sons and your daughter are
beyond your command
Your old role is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand
For the times they are a changing"
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Bob-Dylan/Times-They-Are-A-Changing.html

Up front I need to say that as this is a new course, and while I have plans for our work, our experience will likely unfold as we learn to work together and this will likely lead me/us to want to modify our plans. Please keep this in mind as we move forward towards our goals. What at times may feel like disorganization will hopefully really be the energy of creativity in action. Doing is not always linear and any work that requires process and collaboration will be full of pot holes and seemingly wrong turns!

Climate Change, Art and Activism: The Heat is On....or is it? will involve an examination of issues surrounding climate change and exploration of best strategies for change. The science of climate change will not be our primary focus, however we will need to understand some basics in order to follow the debates and assess possible solutions. We will watch films, beginning with Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, and Laurie David's Too Hot NOT to Handle. We will explore ideas about climate change, global warming, water wars, and other environmental concerns of interest, with consideration given to the ways in which artists and citizen activists are responding to the climate crisis.

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Assignments
In this course you will be asked to actively research and promote campus solutions, while also building campus-wide awareness of climate change and global warming. All forms of art and activism will be encouraged in meeting these goals. A variety of persuasive forms of discourse - visual, text-based, and verbal - will be explored. Students will help shape assignments, and to some extent will refine the focus of our work. You will also be responsible for presentation of course materials, and will therefore have some choice about the research you do and the projects in which you engage. There will be three - four formal written assignments, and you will be asked to identify and prepare two public presentations. A variety of options will be provided for how to fulfill this work. Details will follow, but as a starter you might look at the following links for ideas for potential class projects. In addition to the three - four papers and two presentations, you will be asked to identify three additional small projects to work on. These may be articles or opinion pieces for the Campus or the Meadville Tribune, posters for Climate Change Initiative, TER, etc. We will identify these individually and as a group through class and individual discussions. You will be responsible to 'contract' with me for this work.

NESEA's POSTER CONTEST for COLLEGE and UNIVERSITY STUDENTS - while the deadline has passed the project provides one project example.

Allegheny College Innovation Challenge - this might actually be required.

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_classroom.asp - " Throughout history, students have been the driving force in social change. Now more than ever is the time for students across the country to become global warming activists and join the movement. On this page you will find tips for stopping global warming that your class or school can do today. You don't have to do everything, but we all need to do something! Get started in your school and keep us posted with results.

Allegheny College's Climate Change Initative. This group could use a website, or some sort of page linked to the College's page outlining Environmental Responsibility, They are also looking for assistance signing campus community onto the Carbon Challenge, or assistance with articles in the Campus to report on lectures, etc

Allegheny's Presidential Task Force for Environmental Responsibility (TER) - we will want to be aware of the efforts of this group. There will likely be work we can do to assist in this effort.

http://www.coolitchallenge.org/participate1.php - deadline will have passed, but offers ideas! Some might be relevant for the College's Innovation Challenge

U.S. EPA Energy Star Student Activity Guide -

Please search the web for additional options for projects. My preference is that the work we do this semester will have an impact on our community. As such, the campus community will be our audience for all (well most) papers and "speeches."

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Books/Readings
The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery
The Rough Guide to Climate Change, Robert Henson
The Solution is You! An Activist's Guide Laurie David
The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools, Dr. Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder (will be given to you)
In addition you should have a copy of A Writer's Reference, by Hacker and the The Speaker's Compact Handbook, by Jo Sprague and Douglas Stuart.
Note: We will not read each of these books cover to cover, but they will provide us with common ground and so are considered required texts.
A variety of other readings will be provided either through electronic course reserves, or as handouts and/or links.

Links
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - Organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. It is open to all members of the UN and WMO. IPCC's role is to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the risk of human-induced climate change, as well as its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

Climate Search - This link takes you to comments about a draft report from a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that was inadvertently made available on the Internet by a U.S. government committee. The comments can be attributed to James M. Taylor, managing editor of Environment & Climate News and senior fellow for The Heartland Institute, a 22-year-old nonprofit research organization based in Chicago. Raises questions on how the science is being interpreted.

The New York Times - science section with focus on energy issues. I recommend that you sign up for TimesSelect for the semester!

Real Climate: Climate Science From Real Scientists - This particular page links you to a discussion of Art and Climate. The overall site presents commentary on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. Their aim is to provide a quick response to emerging news/stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. Discussion is restricted to scientific topics and does not dig into political or economic implications of the science.

The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle - This link takes you to a page on The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) website which suggests that while the Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, there is scientific evidence to suggest that human activities have little to do with it. Instead, the warming seems to be part of a 1,500-year cycle (plus or minus 500 years) of moderate temperature swings.What to make of such contrasting views? FYI, NCPA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983, whose goal is to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector. Topics include reforms in health care, taxes, Social Security, welfare, criminal justice, education and environmental regulation.Their website indicates that they get 59% of their funding from Foundations, 24% from corporations, and 17% from private individuals

BBC News - a link that will get you to their main site via an article by Environment Correspondent Richard Black, 'Clear' human impact on climate. Article debunks the debunkers!

Clean Air Cool Planet - "Clean Air-Cool Planet creates partnerships in the Northeast to implement solutions to climate change and build constituencies for effective climate policies and actions."

Stop Global Warming Now - This site features a movement about that is about creating change... as individuals, as a country, and as a global community. Join the 582,653 supporters of the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand solutions to global warming now.

Worldwatch Institutue's Environmental Timeline - outlines key achievements/developments in the sustainability movement between 1960 - 2004
Worldwatch Institute - offers a unique blend of interdisciplinary research, global focus, and accessible writing making it a leading source of information on the interactions around the transition to an environmentally sustainable and socially just society—and how to achieve it.

The Greenmuseum - a virtual museum dedicated to the work of environmentally focused, ecoartists. The most thorough web resource around for contemporary eco- and environmental artists.

Writing and Speaking Resources:
Learning Commons - Allegheny College's resource center to support your development of academic skills such as study, etc.
Writing -Allegheny College's resource center to support your development of writing skills
Speaking - Allegheny College's resource center to support your development of speaking skills.

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Grading
No exams or quizzes. Even so, you will need to know your material to succeed in here!

Final grades will be an average of all individual grades for written work and presentations. Attendance and participation will be factored heavily. Specific information on grading criteria for written work and oral presentations will be provided with each assignment.

Consistent class attendance and participation is essential. Please note that a significant portion of your grade will be determined by your regular attendance and your contribution to class discussions. For the record, you will be evaluated on the following criteria re: your participation grade:

o A for class participation is awarded when you regularly initiate discussion. This means that you come to class thoroughly familiar with the assigned readings and prepared to raise questions, open discussion, and actively engage others in discussion. This does not mean monopolizing discussion, shutting other comments or ideas out, or talking just for the sake of it rather than making a point on the topic. Students who are self-starters and do not rely on the instructors questions to set the agenda for discussion, while raising relevant questions, will be awarded a grade of A for participation as opposed to a B.
o B for class participation is awarded to those who participate regularly and productively in class discussion, who are prepared, and who are willing to engage.
o C for class participation is awarded for regular but less frequent participation than that modeled by the B student. C discussants will be prepared for class, but their contributions will indicate that less thought has been given to the assigned materials.
o D for class participation is given to those who contribute infrequently to the discussion and whose contributions do not appear to arise from thoughtful consideration of the assignments.
o F for non-participation. Of course, participation is impossible if you don't attend class. Frequent absences mandate an F grade.

Honor Code
The honor code is strictly enforced in this class. If you have questions regarding honor code policies, please see us. Anyone suspected of plagiarism, the most common form of academic dishonesty, will be reported to the Honor Code Committee. A clear statement of what constitutes plagiarism is provided at:
http://webpub.allegheny.edu/dept/writingcenter/Links/plagiarism.htm

Assignment Policy
Assignments that are not submitted on the due date WILL NOT be accepted without formal documentation such as a medical note from a doctor. Arrangements for any make-up assignment have to be made by the student concerned within a week of the original assignment due date. Please do not approach me at the end of the semester with requests for make-ups for exams and/or assignments that are already delinquent.

Please DO NOT leave assignments/papers in my mailbox or under my office door. Please hand all assignments to me in person on the due date. The only exceptions are if I give you WRITTEN (e-mail) permission to do so, or to hand in an assignment on a different date than the original due date.

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