Time Schedule:
Richard M. Strickland
OCEAN 260
Seattle Campus
Examines historical human impacts on the land/water ecosystem of the Puget Sound, roles of regional governance and citizen action, and prospects for ecological restoration. Computer labs and field trips for additional credit. Offered: jointly with ENVIR 260.
Class description
This course is an overview of the Puget Sound land and water ecosystem for environmental science majors and interested non-science majors. The Puget Sound ecosystem is vitally important to the region, and it is facing serious problems. The course plan will follow case studies of the restoration efforts of the local, state, and federal governments regarding aquatic habitat in Snohomish and King Counties and the oxygen "Dead Zone" in Hood Canal. It will look at the physical and biological relationship of Puget Sound to the surrounding watershed. At the same time it will examine how the Puget Sound environment is governed and what roles individual citizens (including students) play in its decline and could play in its recovery.
Student learning goals
Understand the basic physical & biological functioning of watersheds from summit to sea, and of the shoreline and deep water systems of Puget Sound.
Understand how these components interrelate to operate as an ecosystem, using salmon as a representative species affected by all parts of the system.
Know the federal, tribal, state, county, and city government agencies and basic laws that they use to govern the Puget Sound ecosystem, conecting these agencies and laws to the natural resources that they are designed to manage.
Comprehend past and present human impacts on the Puget Sound ecosystem. Relate these impacts to ongoing cooperative Puget Sound ecosystem protection and restoration activities by governments and non-governmental organizations. Comprehend the viewpoints of activist groups that are critical of the ways that these efforts are conducted.
Lab & field trip students comprehend the basics of selected electronic mapping and modelling tools used by ecosystem researchers and managers, and learn additional details of the ecosystem using data derived from these tools. They also report on direct observations of case-studies sites and the management issues that arise at these sites.
Understand your own impacts on the Puget Sound ecosystem, including cumulative impacts of past alterations whose benefits you enjoy, and consider how you might support efforts at ecosystem protection and restoration.
General method of instruction
There will be 2 90-minute lectures per week. Students may enroll in section A for lectures only (3 credits) or for section B (5 credits), which includes a lab section, and which requires a $50 course fee for transportation. In section B, each Friday there will be either 1) a computer lab studying the maps and models that scientists use for watershed and Hood Canal recovery efforts; or 2) a field trip to a case-study site in the King/Snohomish county region illustrating habitat impacts and restoration efforts.
Recommended preparation
There are no formal prerequisites. Please have an inquiring mind and the patience to read a wide range of material on the web and in a course pack, since there is no one textbook that covers this material. Students in section B should be comfortable with detailed web-based computer exercises and light outdoor activities in marginal weather.
Class assignments and grading
There will be three short-answer exams and some short-answer homework assignments in the lecture portion of the class. Students in the lab and field trip section also will submit writeups of their lab and field trip exercises.
