Building off of the important framework for environmental studies we covered in ENVS 160 last fall, ENVS 220 focuses on the idea of “doing environmental studies”. In other words, implementing our knowledge of scholarly perspectives on environmental problems and solutions in the real world. As we dig deeper and move forward in our Land Use Cover Change (LUCC) lab, I believe it is valuable to provide context for this project and revisit the content we have been studying thus far, which has mainly focused on environmental analysis in the Anthropocene.
First of all, what in the world is the Anthropocene? Anthropocene is a proposed term to define the Earth’s current geological epoch. The Anthropocene defines Earth’s current geologic time period as anthropogenic (being human-influenced), “based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans”. Now that we’ve defined what the Anthropocene is, we can situate it in terms of our analysis of land use and cover change. LUCC is one way that we can make sense of the Anthropocene. There is a long history of interest in environmental change within this epoch, for example Earth as Transformed by Human Action (1990) examines historical background and effect of anthropomorphic change. More recent research on LUCC includes efforts by International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (1985-2015), and currently by the Global Land Programme under Future Earth. The GLOBE Program (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is another example of recent research involving LUCC. According to their website, “[GLOBE] is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process, and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment”. Throughout this project, we have followed GLOBE protocols for data-gathering and analysis. We also continued to build on our understanding of the “question hierarchy”, a strategy for creating purposeful question. The question hierarchy includes descriptive, explanatory, evaluative, and instrumental questions, which build on each other and allow us to develop a more thorough understanding of environmental concepts even before we begin digging in to them. The Big Questions that have guided this project, such as “what are the changes in Land use/Cover?” and “what are the drivers of these changes?”, were inspired by GLOBE and Global Land Programme. After conducting background research and developing framing questions to guide our learning, we investigated land use and cover change on a local scale. Our efforts focused on Lewis and Clark Undergraduate campus and the surrounding areas, including River View Natural Area and Collins View Neighborhood. By incorporating our research on land use/cover change with our investigations in the lab portion of ENVS 220, we were able to situate our understanding of environmental analysis on a greater scale. Our investigation of our guiding questions were slowly answered as we gathered qualitative and quantitative information from field research, data collection and analysis, and group discussion within our class and with experts on this area.
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