Envs 4950 Integrative Seminar in Environmental Studies, Spring 2025
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Policies
last update: January 11, 2025
I. Course Information and Description
ENVS 4950 Integrative Seminar in Environmental Studies
Monday and Wednesday 9:20-10:15am, Sam Wilson Hall 315
This course is a "capstone" experience for Environmental Studies minors who are preparing to graduate. The purpose is to help you synthesize what you've learned in the courses you've already taken for the minor, and to help you identify your own niche, or area of interest, within the broad field of environmental studies. Students in the class will read and discuss two books and a range of articles in common. In addition, you will work with me, individually, to arrange a service activity, project, or placement related to your area of interest. You will also then select additional readings (one full-length book, or the equivalent) that relate specifically to your interests.
II. Instructor Information
Dr. Kevin O'Donnell, http://faculty.etsu.edu/odonnell/, odonnell@etsu.edu 423 439-6679
III. Assignments and Activities
- 20 to 30 hours service activity or project.
- Readings, discussion, and written responses: You will occasionally write responses to the readings, either as assigned ahead of time, or in class on the day readings are due.
- Syllabus and course materials: You will submit a customized syllabus by the fifth week of class, to be posted on the web.
- Written final project: You will produce approximately 10 pages of formal writing--the form, audience, and purpose of which will be related to your service project, and which will be determined by you, in consultation with me.
IV. Final Grade Breakdown
- 20-30 hour service placement : 25%
- Written final project: 25%
- Weekly assignments, including customized syllabus; reading responses; reading quizzes; etc: 20%
- Midterm exam: 15%
- Final exam: 15%
V. Required Texts
- Erika Howsare. The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors. Catapult Books, 2025. $17.95. 978-1646222506
- John Vaillant. Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World. Vintage, 2024. $20.00. 978-0525434245
- In addition to the above texts, which we will all read in common, you will select an another text--typically one book or a book-length work--related specifically to your area of interest, and to your service placement. You will choose this text in consultation with me.
- Also, you will read various slection posted on the internet. See "Calendar" link, above, for reading assignments.
VI. Service Placements
For this course, you will spend 20-30 hours, over the course of the 15-week semester, engaged in a service activity or project related to your area of interest within environmental studies. You will work with me to arrange your placement with an institution or group.
I will talk to you during the first two weeks of classes about which placement could work for you. Here is a partial list of places where students have volunteered in the past:
- Appalachian Trail Maintenance (TN Eastman Hiking Club)
- Roan Mountain State Park
- Bays Mountain Park (City of Kingsport)
- Johnson City Parks
- Erwin National Fish Hatchery (US Fish & Wildlife)
- Cherokee National Forest fisheries biologist
- ETSU Sustainability Department