Environmental Sociology - American Sociological Association

engage in thought exercises and debates on issues with a critical, non-judgmental, and open mind – a
place where we can articulate incomplete or controversial ideas freely. Without active participation
your education will be severely impaired, so please take your fellow classmates and your own
development seriously by participating regularly and actively.
2) Reading. All other assignments assume that you will be reading carefully the assigned texts below.
For each week, you will be asked to read approximately one hundred pages of material, which should
be completed by the first day of the week they are to be discussed. No assignment is as important for
your progress in this class as reading. Therefore, I expect for you to keep up and be an active critical
reader.
3) Briefs. Throughout the semester you will have to write ten briefs, due on days highlighted throughout
the Course Schedule. In these, I will look for you to reflect on the central arguments for that week’s
readings, including a summary of basic themes. I also will expect you to offer commentary, which
should be based on your own analysis of the readings. This should integrate personal experiences,
current events, and sociological insights drawn from other courses you have taken, and it would be an
ideal place for you to reflect upon issues related to your service project (discussed below).
4) A Problem-Based Service Learning (PBSL) Project. A PBSL project entails a student, under the
guidance of the instructor, working with a “community partner” or “client” to solve a problem. That
is, the project incorporates a problem-based approach to community service learning, hence PBSL.
This is a very different form of assignment than most Bowdoin faculty give in their courses. It asks
you to match your learning needs to community service in ways that can enhance both your education
and the surrounding community. Where PBSL has been used, it has been found that students gain a
deeper and practical understanding of course materials, greater interpersonal and leadership skills,
and a sense of connection to their community. The work for PBSL projects will be completed in
several stages.
• In the first week of the course, I would like you as individuals, and potentially as a group, to
survey the topics of the syllabus and identify issues that are particularly interesting or
troublesome to you. You may also select from areas of environmental/social studies that are
not represented in the syllabus (e.g., environmental education or religion and environment).
Together, we will work with the staff of Bowdoin to see if our interests and learning needs
match the needs of community partner(s). We will then make contact with potential
community partners to discuss their work and determine whether we can assist them while
addressing the topics of the course. Community partners may be neighborhood or
community associations, non-governmental organizations, government offices, or potentially
even private enterprise.
• By the fourth week of the course, we will work to write a problem statement(s) that will
define the issues, discuss the community partner’s needs, and then articulate a way that we
can both address their needs and meet the learning goals of the course.
• Throughout the middle portion of the course, we will work with the community partner(s) to
address their needs, making periodic reports to the class along the way.
• In week nine, you will be responsible for handing in the first section of your final PBSL
report, which will include 1) an introduction to the entire project, 2) a background report on
the environmental/social issues of your project, 3) and a revised version of the problem
statement you wrote in week four.
• At the end of the course, you will have due a final project paper. Here, you will add to the
paper you handed in on week nine. This additional section will explain the substance of your
work for the community partner, how you helped them, and what you learned from the
project about the given issue. Here, I will ask you to reflect not merely on the immediate
issues important to the community partner, but also on more abstract but relevant issues
surveyed in the course. This final project will also be presented orally to members of the
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