GEOG 462 - Views on the Environment

Trafton B.

February 4, 2011 - 12:50 PM

Remember those times in middle school or high school when you looked outside as the sun beamed down onto the fresh cut grass and the blossoming cherry tree in the quad? You'd be sitting in some boring history class and everyone wanted to be outside so bad because they'd been trapped by the doldrums of winter. One of your classmates finally gets the courage one day to ask the teacher, "Hey, Mr. Murphy, could we have class outside today....please?" Your ears perk up, curious to hear the response. "No! We have work to do." The class lets out a collective ‘harrumph' and returns to a lackluster discussion on British Colonialism in Africa. Sound familiar?

Well, that's not how things work at the University of Oregon.

Today we held our Views on the Environment (Geography 462) class outside underneath the Giant Sequoia tree behind Johnson Hall. A few students lead day's discussion about our readings assignments from Donald Worster's classic book, "Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas." One chapter we read was entitled "Nature Looking into Nature." What better way to look into nature than by being emersed in its branches?

The discussion was great! We covered Henry David Thoreau's Romantic view of nature versus Charles Darwin's scientific theory of evolution. A theme of our class, I've noticed, is noticing the paradigm shifts in human thinking about our relationship with nature. The pioneers trekked across the nation and in the process tamed wilderness, saw its value as a potential for civilization. Then out of the city came a longing for the wildness of nature that couldn't be found in the built environment. Politics, religion, and science all caused the wilderness debate to shift between utilitarian and semantics.

As you can tell I'm a big proponent of this class. It's been a long time since I've taken a humanities course, and, now that I think about it, it's been a long time since I've taken a purely Environmental Studies class. My course load has been really PPPM heavy since I added the major at the beginning of last year. I've been swimming in environmental policy and ArcGIS. It's relieving to put the brakes on the skills courses and let my mind reconnect with my environmental side.

Although, with that said, I just decided to write my term paper on the connection between Romanticism and America's urban parks. I have the feeling that this paper might become the climactic expression of my two academic interests, urban planning and the natural environment. Not to mention I've always wanted to learn more about municipal parks, so I'm stoked that I finally have the opportunity.

As the weeks roll by and the end of my college career ominously moves into plain sight, I can't help but reflect on my past three and a half years in Eugene. Even as I sit here in the Buzz, listening to a duo of acoustic electric guitars serenade the Friday afternoon crowd of cheerful café-goers, I can't help but think about the experiences that have made my time at Oregon special.

I've come a long way since the dorms in McAllister, since sophomore and junior year year at The Compound. At one point in time I was considering switching my major to International Studies or Business. Two years of Chinese, three when you count the summer in Shanghai. It's been a long time since I was a campus tour guide. Heck, it's even been a long time since I started with Facilities Services last Fall. I barely knew how to use Excel back then. Two seasons of co-ed intramural softball that both ended in the semi-finals, plus a season of men's softball, a season of football, a season of dodgeball, and one game (literally ‘game,' not even a full season) of intramural basketball.

Sorry, I'm getting hung up on semantics, and I obviously need to spend some time organizing my reflections into a separate post. My point is that things have changed over the past few years, both in myself and in education. Education is different than it once was, and my outdoors class is a great example of that shift in pedagogical theory, which I learned all about last year in the Environmental Leadership Program.

It's fun looking back at where we've come from and the progress we've made over the years. Hopefully it will help me as I move forward and I have to leave Eugene behind in June. Then again, that's still five months away and I've always been a large proponent of living in the moment.