Syllabus
Figure 1. Seriously sustainable fieldwork in GEOG 439.
http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/index_new.htm
Fall 2007 Dr. Scott Brady
T-Th: 3:30-4:45 Office: 523 Butte Hall
Location: THMA 117 Phone:898-5588
Office Hours: MWF 9:30-10:45 and T 2:15-3:15 email:sbrady@csuchico.edu
Geography Computer Lab: Butte 501
Hours: MW 8-5
TR 8-9:30 & 12:15-5
Writing Center http://online.csuchico.edu/public/Writing_Center/
Men are so inclined
to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses
so easily grow dead to the
impressions of the
beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to
nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling
these things. ...For
this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read
a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it
were possible, to speak
a few reasonable words.
Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Bk. v, ch. 1 (Carlyle, tr.)
[source: Stevenson]
Description: This course will explore the American cultural landscapes and the landscape tradition by means of readings, student reports, field trips, and independent research.
Course Objectives:
1.Explore landscape tradition.
2.Explore American cultural landscapes.
3.Read and discuss seminal and curious works.
4.Write reviews of these works for inclusion in a course portfolio which will contain: 1) copies of articles read; 2) typed reviews; 3) field notes; 4) discussion notes; and 5) some other stuff.
5.Explore, observe, and study several local landscapes, on site and in the library.
6.Explore, observe and study one local landscape in great detail.
7.Create a representation
of that landscape.
8. Compile a visual
glossary of the landscape components that distinguish the Chico area's
cultural landscape.
1. Online and Reserve readings. http://www.csuchico.edu/library.
Course: GEOG 439
Password:
6AMIU
2. Walking the flatlands
: the rural landscape of the lower Sacramento Valley / Mike Madison. Berkeley, Calif. :
Heyday Books, c2004.
San
Francisco Chronicle review of Madison's "The Blithe Tomato".
You will do several types of work in this course. They include:
1. Reviews of assigned readings. You'll do a lot of these. The authors of these articles, chapters and one book will guide your exploration of landscape study. Your reviews will be opportunities to develop your knowledge of landscapes and how to study them, and improve your writing and re-writing. The reviews will also prepare you for class discussions.
2. Field trip reports. We will take several group and/or individual field trips during the semester, either on foot or on bikes. Each field trip is an assignment in landscape observation, description and interpretation. These assignments will allow you to develop the geographer's "gift of sight", and improve your writing and re-writing. The reports will also prepare you for class discussions.
3. Landscape Narrative. Each student will create a narrative about a particular walking/biking tour in Chico. The narrative will include a written portion in which you discuss and describe the landscapes encountered on the tour. It also will include images (sketches and/or photos) and a map. These tours might be included in the activities associated with the California Geographical Society meeting that the geography department will host during the spring semester.
4. Other stuff. I might come up with some other stuff.
5. Portfolio
Grades:
I assign final grades according
to the work described above and in collaboration with students.
How does this work? I assign work (reviews, exercises...).
You do the work and turn it in on time. I evaluate your work and
assign it a mark of R, OK, or * (That * is supposed to be a
star).
R = re-write, re-do and/or revise and
means that your work was incomplete, insufficient and/or
incorrect. You have until the next class period to revise your
work. On that day you will
turn in your original and revised versions of the work. And then I
grade the revision. Revised work might receive an OK or a *, or another
R. If it's an R, the
student must give the assignment another shot. OKs and *s for
revised work replace Rs in my grade book.
Oh yeah, I do not
accept any late work. I do however, accept work turned in
early.
OK = OK means that your
work is of high enough qualtiy to go into your portfolio.
* = This is excellent work. Thank you for putting so much
effort into the assignment.
So, I put Rs, OKs, and.or *s in
my gradebook. How do I come up with a final grade? Well, I
look the 30 or so symbols in my gradebook and decide. If more
than half of a student's entries are *s, I figure that a student has
done consistently excellent work and they deserve an A. If I see
a lot of Rs, I figure that the student did poor work and did not care
to improve it and they deserve a D or an F. Yes, this is a quite
approximate method of grade calculation. Don't fret. To help
students figure out how they are doing, mid-semester they must schedule
a meeting with me. During that meeting we'll look at the array of
symbols earned thus far and evaluate their work. Also, at the end of
the semester I ask students to make a case for, and assign themselves,
a final grade for the course. I take their self-evaluations
seriously.
Landscape guide
Useful Links
http://www.trentu.ca/geography/PATKch7p100.html
http://www.rivers.gov.au/model/diagrams.htm
http://www.zalf.de/home_zalf/institute/lsa/lsa_e/
http://www.cpat.org.uk/projects/longer/histland/maelor/maelor.htm#1122%20Mulsford
http://www.amst.umd.edu/Research/cultland/index.html
http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/index.html
Orchards:
http://www.bluediamond.com/growers/techniques/cultural/hedgerow.cfm
http://www.fowlernurseries.com/index.html
http://cetehama.ucdavis.edu/Agriculture/Groundwater__Wells_-_Pumps__Information.htm
http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/2280/20281.pdf
Recreation:
http://www.waterskimag.com/article.jsp?ID=4710
http://www.shadowlakeestates.com/
House styles:
http://www.uwec.edu/Geography/Ivogeler/w367/styles/index.htm
http://www.greatbuildings.com/types.html
http://www.historicberkeley.com/Styarc.htm
http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-styles_index.htm
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~twp/architecture/
http://www.preservationdirectory.com/architecturalstyles.html
http://www.cmhpf.org/kids/Guideboox/OldHouseGuide.html
http://www.railbarons.org/Layout/layout.html
http://ah.bfn.org/a/archsty/index.html
8/30 Orientation paper due:
Orientation Paper Instructions:
Students will turn in a typed, double-spaced, 250-word essay in which they answer the following questions:1) Why did you enroll in this course?
2) What do you hope to learn in this course?
3) Do you have a good bike?
4) What kind of camera do you have?
5) How well do you know the Chico area?
6) What are your favorite Chico landscapes?
7) Who are you?
Looking at landscapes
Required Reading
- Sauer, Carl O. "The
Education of a Geographer." Reprinted from The Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, Vol. 46 (1956): 287-99.
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/giw/sauer-co/1956_teg/1956_teg_body.html
Type your review and include and/or address these points and questions. Review due on Thursday.
1. How did you become a geographer?
2. How is your approach to geography similar or different from that of Sauer?
3. What does Sauer mean by the "morphologic eye"?
4. What is the method that he describes in the section "On Being Unspecialized
5. What activities does Sauer prescribe for effective geographical training?
6. What kind of field work?
7. What is the role of description?
Week 2 (Sept. 3-7)
Editing suggestions, as promised.
Hart
- Hart, John Fraser. Understanding Landscape.
Points to address and questions to answer.
1. Describe
the emphases for landscape study according to Hart.
5. How,
specifically, do agricultural systems play a major role in shaping a
landscape?
6. What
are the other influences?
7. On
what grounds does he “invokes function to explain as much of built
landscape as
possible”?
8. What
has happened to the influence of the physical environment on ag
landscapes
during the past 50 years?
9. Summarize
Hart’s opinion of studying symbolism in the landscape.
10. Summarize
Hart’s opinion of studying human perception of the landscape.
11. What
does prior potior mean? Why is it important for landscape
study?
12. How
does one study landscapes according to Hart?
- Pierce F. Lewis, "Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene," in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, ed. D. W. Meinig (Oxford University Press, 1979): 11-32.
Points to address and questions to answer.
Review due on Thursday
1. How are landscapes like a book
yet difficult to read?
3. What is Lewis' opinion of academics as examples for landscape interpretation?
4. Summarize the Axiom of
Landscape as Clue to Culture. Be sure you understand the
supporting corollaries.
5. Summarize the Axiom of Common
Things.
6. Explain the
Corollary of
Nonacademic Literature
7. Explain the Corollary of
Historic Lumpiness and provide a Chico example.
8. Explain the
Axiom of Landscape Obscurity
Week 3 (Sept 10-14)
Landscapes of Eddie Ecrivisse
D. W. Meinig, "The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene," in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, ed. D. W. Meinig (Oxford University Press, 1979): 32-48.
Points to address and questions
to
answer.
Review
due on Tuesday
1. Main
point of paper?
2. Why
does he mention the 18th century Romantics?
3. Compare the
"Landscape as Habitat" view with the "Landscape as Nature" view.
4. Compare the "Landscape as
Habitat" view with the "Landscape as Artifact" view? Why?
Provide
a local example.
5. What group of scholars
and workers utilize the "Landscape as Problem" view? Why? Provide a local example.
6. What group of scholars
and workers utilize the "Landscape as Wealth" view? Why? Provide
a local example.
7. What group of scholars
and workers utilize the "Landscape as History" view? Why? Provide a local example.
8. What group of scholars
and workers utilize the "Landscape as Place" view? Why? Provide a local ex
9. Which 2-3 views do you favor?
Why?
Assignment
Week 4 (Sept 17-21)
Due Tuesday: Read the foreword and pages 9-30 in Walking the Flatlands.
Points to address and questions to answer.
1. Who is Mike Madison?
2. How did he get this book published? Who published it?
3. What main question does Madison attempt to answer?
4. What is the "bioregional perspective"?
5. How did Gary Snyder propose that we could "become native to a place"? What is your opinion of this pursuit?
6. Madison's discussion of a standpipe is similar to the work of what geographer? How so?
7. Explain why the Sacramento Valley is flat. Incorporate natural and human forces in your explanation.
8. What physical and human factors interrupt the grid of roads in the Sacramento Valley?
9. How does parcel size determine the "texture of the landscape"?
10. What advantages does the Mediterranean climate provide to farmers?
11. What is the difference between a drain and a canal?
Due on Thursday: Read pages 31-49 in Walking the Flatlands.
2. Contrast the presence of fog, clouds and thunder.
3. What has happened to the prevalence of fire? Why?
4. How has woodland acreage changed between 1800 and 2000? How? Why?
5. What is
Pic
7. Of the “few notable plants” that Madison describes, which did you observe on our ride down 3rd St.? In which situations?
Pic
8. What has happened to the “formal avenue of trees"? Why?
Pic
9. Summarize the history of eucalypts in
10. Look at Figure 20. Where have you seen this?
11. As you travel the rural areas around
Week 5 (Sept. 24-28)
Due on
Tuesday
Points to address and questions
to
answer.
1. List 4 features of the Putah Creek district
that make it
“especially favored for farming”. Does
the Big Chico Creek watershed share those features?
http://bioregion.ucdavis.edu/book/Contents.html
http://www.bigchicocreek.org/nodes/aboutwatershed/ecr/maps/bigchico_3d_dem_s.jpg
http://www.bigchicocreek.org/nodes/aboutwatershed/ecr/maps.htm
3. How was and is farming in the Putah Creek
district
different from traditional farming back east.
Include a statement about ownership and labor.
4. Learn the variety of crops grown.
Don’t list them. Just learn them.
http://callisto.lab.csuchico.edu/greatvalley/pages/sp_butte.html
5. What is the state of livestock raising in the
district?
How is that odd considering the amount of land devoted to forage
production?
What type of livestock is
most numerous?
6. How has the timing of soil tillage changed
during the
past100 years? What allowed the change
and what have been consequences of that change?
7. Learn how is nitrogen cycled in a farm. What are the differences between leguminous
and chemical fertilizer as sources of nitrogen?
How is each applied to a farm?
8. How do the bell
beans shown in Figure 28 influence that orchard’s nitrogen budget?
Pic
Pic
9. As you observe our agricultural landscapes, keep an eye out for the presence of the objects in Figure 29.
10. Why is phosphorous considered a nonrenewable resource?
11. How have growers of greenhouse crops been
indirectly
experimenting with the effect of increased greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere on
plant growth?
12. What is the relationship of carbon to soil?
Thursday Field exercise
Then click on "The California DRG MapSurfer Tool. (USGS developed Map Server client)" and zoom in until you have the portion of the map that you need.
Or, http://mapper.acme.com/
http://www.bcag.org/__planning/documents/2004_RTP/11Goods.pdf
http://phobos.lab.csuchico.edu/projects/veg_mapping/peterson/peterson_base_s.pdf
Week 6 (Oct. 1-5)
Review due on Tuesday- Read pages 67-76 in Walking the Flatlands.
Points to address and questions to answer.
1. Summarize the three general energy uses on a farm.
2. Compare energy use associated with orchard, corn and beef and beef production.
3.
What are
4. Why the current monoculture in the district?
5.
Summarize
6.
Summarize the changes that
7.
Write a few sentences in which you express your opinion about
Review due on Thursday, October 4.
- Read pages 83-89 in Walking the Flatlands.
Points to address and questions to answer.
1.
What 2-3 aspects of the Central Valley's physical geography led to
widespread adoption of combines? Why the name "combine"?
2.
Summarize the history of farm machinery innovation in the Central
Valley and its influence on farm size.
3.
Summarize the 3 ways big farming affects the landcape? Use these terms
in your summary: bank, bare,
chemicals, orchardists, farmstead.
Week 7 (Oct. 8-12)
Due
on
Tuesday, October 9.
- Read pages 93- 113 in Walking the Flatlands.
Points to address and questions to answer.
1. Find a web-site(s) that has images of each of the 6 house types that Madison mentions on p.94. Copy the URL(s) onto your review. Begin looking for these types of houses around Chico and note their locations.
2. What does Madison mean by "cycles of abandonment" being a "feature of the rural landscape"? Have we seen any local examples?
3. Why are Butte County's "old mansions" inaccurate samples of 19th century housing?
4. Where have you seen the house in Figure 45? What style is it? ?
5. How is the modern rural residential landscape more egalitarian than that of the 19th century?
6. What was/is the functon of the barn "beak"?
7. When did barns become less uniform? Why?
8. Explain the structure of tank towers.
9. What new kinds of fences are found in "the district"? With which land uses and owners are they associated?
10. Summarize Madison's thoughts about orderly and disorderly farmsteads and the people who maintain them.
Field Trip on Thursday
Week 8 (Oct. 15-19)
Field Trip Quiz Show, Episode 2.
Review due on
Tuesday, October 16.
http://www.benchmarkdevelopmentco.com/
- Read pages 114- 127 in Walking the Flatlands.
Points to address and questions to answer.
1.Summarize Madison's account of changes in housing. Utilize the following terms in your summary: area, family size, stuff, time indoors, house cost vs. salary.
2. How does the price of land influence the sizes and costs of new houses?
3. Explain Madison's claim that townscapes are simply "compressed rural landscapes".
4. What kind of townscape does he recommend? Would you like to live in this sort of townscape? Why? Why not?
5. Explain Madison's statement,"What had formerly been house-as process has become house-as-object".
6. Summarize the "Dynamics of Urban Growth" section. Utilize the following terms in your summary: periphery, center, trees, historic preservation.
7. What does Madison mean when he says that some landscapes are a "cacaphony of shouting"?
8. Explain Madison's idea that a greenbelt can function like a medieval town's fortress walls.
9. How has open space changed in Davis during the past ~50 years?
10. Read p.124-125 for your own enjoyment.
11. What is your opinion of Madison's discussion of lawn culture?
12. What is your opinion of Madison's prescription for "successful small cities"?
Review due on
Thursday, October 18.
Landscape
Guide Entry Instructions
- Read pages 129- 156 in Walking the Flatlands.
Week 9 (Oct. 22-26)
Tuesday, October 23. Tour of Chico's Original Residential Neighborhood.
Instructions
Meet at 3:30 on the corner of 4th and Chestnut.
Turn in a list of addresses and justifications that corresponds to each of the house types.
Thursday
We'll do something. Don't cut class.
South of Campus House Types
Week 10 (Oct. 29- Nov. 2)
Tuesday
Name That House Type. On Tuesday, October 30th you will turn in a paper in which you identify the house styles found at the addresses below.
You will also write one or two sentences in which you identify the architectural features that support your answers.
1. 519 W. 5th St.
2. 1171 Woodland
3. 797 E. 8th St.
4. 1155 Woodland Ave.
5. 344 Flume St.
6. 596 E. 7th St.
7.488 E. 3rd St.
8. 870 E. 5th St.
Also On Tuesday, you will turn in your draft of your first landscape field guide entry. See the link in Week 8 for instructions.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Population/Photos/
Greek Revival
Thursday. Class begins at 4:15. I'll give you instructions for a field exercise.
Exercise Instructions
Week 12 (Nov. 12-16)
Tuesday: Meet in front of Bidwell Presbyterian Church at 3:30.
Bring your 5 choices for repeat photography.
Thursday: Repeat photography assignment
Week 13 (Nov. 19-23)
Thanksgiving Holiday. Enjoy yourselves!
Week 14 (Nov. 26-30)
Tuesday. Second draft of Landscape Field Guide Entry due.
Bring $2 to class.
Thursday. Repeat photography assignment due.
Residential block exercise re-writes due.
Bring $2 to class, if you didn't bring it on Tuesday.
Week 15 (Dec. 3-7)
Tuesday. Final Landscape Description Assignment.
Thursday. Come ready to walk in the fog, rain or sun. Optional
Pick up your 2nd draft of your landscape field guide entry from the envelope stapled to the bulletin board outside of my office. Make suggested revisions and turn in a digiatl copy of the image and text on a cd-rom on Thursday, December 14.
Here's a web-site that has some historic photos of Chico. Here's the link: http://www.jiminchico.com/photoalbums/oldchico/index.html
Week 16 (Dec. 10-14)
Tuesday. Come ready to walk in the fog, rain or sun. Optional
Thursday. Come ready to walk in the fog, rain or sun. Optional
Hey Folks. Today I have to be at an Academic Senate sub-committee meeting prior to class. Because a proposal that I wrote will be discussed today, the sub-committee chair has instructed me not to leave early. So, I might not be able to go to the gallery today. If I get out early, I will go.
On Thursday I'll be heading to the Avenue 9 Gallery for the Annual Chico Icons show. The gallery's address is 180 E. 9th Ave., Ste 3. They close at 4, so I'm hoping to arrive at 3:30. http://www.avenue9gallery.com/
Final Exam Week (Dec. 17-21)
Landscape Narrative due by Tuesday, 5 pm.
Personal Evaluations Due on Thursday:
Type a few paragraphs in which you answer the following questions:
1. What grade have you earned in this course?
2. On what evidence do you base your grade?
3. Have you learned to read cultural landscapes during this semster? If so, provide an example.
4. Has this course changed the way(s) you look at cultural landscapes? If so, how?
5. Which landcape or landscape component did you enjoy most this semester?
6. What are your plans for the Christmas break?