RHPM 446: Natural Resources Management

Course Description

By the end of this class, you will be able to:

Understand and articulate the impacts of outdoor recreation activities on natural resources including: soil, vegetation, wildlife and water. You will learn to identify these natural resources and be able to explain the multi-scalar ecological impacts from various types of outdoor recreation activities as well as patterns and trends in these impacts (and outdoor recreation more generally). And, you will be able to analyze and identify what factors are affecting these impacts.

Understand and articulate the various mitigation strategies that recreation managers can employ to mitigate the social and ecological impacts of outdoor recreation in parks and protected areas. You will learn specific techniques to monitor, measure and assess the impacts of outdoor recreation on natural resources and will demonstrate an understanding of how to mitigate impacts through visitor management and site management strategies.

The course is an elective in the Parks and Recreation Management major in the Department of Hospitality, Recreation, and Parks Management.

Course prerequisites: RHPM 240 (or faculty permission)

Course Modality

This exciting course will be “online with possible in-person meetings.” The online component will include both asynchronous and synchronous aspects. For asynchronous content, I will share recorded lectures about course topics, self-produced podcasts with land managers and researchers, and self-produced video ”field trips” in which I visit field locations across the United States and discuss recreationists’ impacts to various natural and social environments. For our once-weekly synchronous meetings over Zoom, we engage in activities and discussions. I NEVER (ever) lecture during our meetings.

All my in-person meetings will be optional and extra credit. Some will be on campus and at Bidwell Park and others are in partnership with Sacramento State University and will consist of at least two extra credit field trips over weekends (Friday to Sunday) to parks and protected areas in the region and will include overnight components (i.e., camping). These trips will provide students with hands-on experience in our state’s parks and protected areas that real-world land stewards engage in during their work and students will have the opportunity to meet land management professionals.

Course Design

The course is divided into weekly learning modules in which we tackle one broad topic each week. The topics are explored through readings, podcasts, in-person and virtual field trips, asynchronous and synchronous discussions, and activities. I use Zoom meetings for lively discussions, activities, announcements, and to answer questions and never lecture on the platform.

I take great lengths to clearly organize every aspect of this course. My goal is to have my expectations so clear that I never get questions from students because I would much rather chat with students about more meaningful things and get to know them

Student Engagement & Feedback

This course is completely centered around student engagement, as I seek to build supportive learning communities in all my courses. For the online component of the course, I firmly believe that Zoom should be used for what it was designed for: interaction, discussion, and activities (and not lectures). For the in-person components of the course, students will work collaboratively with one another in hands-on and experiential activities on campus and at off-campus field sites. Teaching in the pandemic, I think, showed us that certain aspects of higher education are antiquated (including classrooms). For me, I believe classroom lectures are not a good use of time with students, so I save in-person meeting times for interaction and share the lectures as online recordings (which students can watch over and over!). (Importantly, I have short weekly quizzes about the lectures and other asynchronous content to ensure that students engage with it).

Assessment of Student Learning

Because student engagement and interactivity is so important for learning, a large proportion of grades for class are based on student participation. We also have low-stakes weekly activities (i.e., students get full credit for participation) and several bigger projects across the semester. For me, clarity about expectations is extremely important. Given this, I always video record instructions for all my assignments (so, I provide both written and video instructions).

Elements of Experiential Learning & Connections to the Professional Field

This course will include experiential learning and connections to the professional field in both online and in-person contexts. Online, I create podcasts in which I interview professionals working in land management across the world, but focus on the American west. Students have lively discussions and participate in a variety of activities based on the content of these interviews. For the in-person component of the course, we will meet several times over the semester to do hands-on activities on campus and in Bidwell Park. Further, I have optional field trips for students at a variety of state and federal parks and protected areas to meet professionals in the field, as a huge goal of mine is to ensure students get jobs after graduation, so I help to cultivate networking opportunities for students that they can leverage after they complete the Parks and Recreation Management program to increase the likelihood of relevant employment.

Click on the video above to experience a "field trip” about soils in a state park in Minnesota

Elements of Climate Change and Resilience & Environmental Justice

In the course, we learn about the social and biophysical implications of climate change in the context of parks and protected areas. We do this by exploring the social science around visitors’ perceptions of climate change, fire, and changing ecosystems (students get a chance to develop social science surveys). Further, we learn about climate changes’ impacts on water, vegetation, and wildlife as well as on the behavior and recreational choices of visitors. Much of this learning happens in outdoor contexts or through the creation of data collection tools, which is inherently experiential.

Technology & Tools

Despite the difficulties of the past year, I personally found teaching during the pandemic to be a liberating experience that forced me to think creatively about the use of technology in my courses. Given this, I have used a variety of strategies to ensure clarity of – and engagement with – course materials.

Specifically, I recorded podcast interviews with land management professionals and academics and uploaded them to Soundcloud, recorded field trips with a GoPro camera and lectures with a screen capture and uploaded them to YouTube. And, in general, I used Blackboard as an organizational hub and discussion platform. Lastly, and again, I used Zoom for what it was designed for: interactions and not lectures.

Click here for an interview with a Forest Service employee about guidance an experiential project in Idaho!

Training in Course Design

Starting in graduate school, I have had a lot of training in digital pedagogy. While at Oregon State University during my PhD, I took coursework on best teaching practices in online and hybrid courses. While at Chico State, I took an ACUE microcredential in “Promoting Active Learning Online,” the Summer Institute in Active and Experiential Learning, and Go Virtual. Further, I have participated in several teaching focused FLCs, including Digital Pedagogy and the Theory and Practice of Teaching First-Year Students. All of these have informed my course design in myriad ways, but I also like to be creative and think beyond what I learn from these experiences and draw inspiration from many things (such as the natural world and even sci-fi novels!).

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