Spring 2010 Schedule

Each of the following dates (January 4-February 5) represents a 2 hour meeting period on Monday-Friday consisting of 1 hour of discussion and 1 hour of practice applying research methods. On Saturdays the time period will be longer for the application of research methods since the assigned “mission” will be a practical assignment leading to a short written paper requiring analysis of the data collected that day. The paper will need to be written and submitted on that same Saturday. It is expected that each Saturday will take about 5-6 hours of work depending on efficiency. There is much reading to be done although many of the articles are brief. A core set of methodological readings are provided initially to read in advance. These will be reviewed as the course progresses since the content of these readings will be applied multiple times.

The final week of the course (February 8-11) is an open-format period wherein the time is not structured and you will be free to work on an independent ethnobotanical project of your own design. During the first five weeks the design of this project will be formulated and the assignments of the course will guide you in development of the needed skills to complete the work in the final week. The final project will be due on the last day of the course and will serve as a summary of the methods learned in the course.