This program will investigate the water cycle in the Pacific Northwest. Our investigations will be guided by two questions: Where does the water come from? Where does it go? We will examine the sources of surface and groundwater, from precipitation and snowmelt and their flows through river systems, lakes and wetlands. The use and abuse of water by humans will be covered, including topics such as water diversion and impoundment, river channel alteration, wetland drainage, storm-runoff management, physical and chemical pollution, and drinking water protection and purification. In the process, we will study stream and wetland ecology, as well as the anadromous fish runs in the Pacific Northwest. We will learn laboratory analytical techniques for measuring concentrations of nutrients and pollutants in water, and we will make weekly field measurements at various sites.

A variety of current issues surrounding water quality and existing policies and future policy options will be explored. We will read several literary works regarding water in the Pacific Northwest ecosystem and in its cultural landscape.

Students will study hydrological cycles; fluid dynamics; riparian, lake and wetland ecology; quantitative modeling of pollutant flows and cycles; analytical chemistry techniques; the history and policy of water usage in the Pacific Northwest; and field measurement and analysis techniques, including statistical analysis.

This program will be excellent preparation for the Hydrology program in spring quarter.

Watersheds are important landscape elements. Due to their scale and function they are very suitable for ecological studies and effective resource management programs. Recent scientific questions at this scale have revolved around the interface between water bodies and the catchments that contain them. We will conduct field studies, lectures and labs addressing the broad landscape patterns and resource management issues associated with watersheds and the water bodies they contain.

The issue of scale in ecology is a current focus of much ecological research: How do we address scale issues, both temporal and spatial, in ecological studies? A goal of the course is to integrate fine-scale and broad-scale ecological information to initiate discussions addressing these issues. We will investigate the importance of scale from a landscape and stream ecology perspective, incorporating research tools such as GIS, statistics and spatial analysis. In addition, we will use recent case studies and research to emphasize the issues and techniques important in carrying out ecological research.

To better understand the interactions between water bodies and the watersheds that contain them, students will examine current trends in stream ecology research and conduct hands-on freshwater ecology fieldwork. Weekly seminars will focus on reading and understanding articles from the primary scientific literature. To integrate fieldwork with critical reading of scientific literature, students will undertake group research projects in stream and landscape ecology to design and investigate a research question, collect and analyze field data and write a peer-reviewed scientific article. We will take organized field trips to watersheds in the Puget Sound and will design student research projects investigating local watersheds.

This program will explore the historical evolution and contemporary dilemmas of family life, sexual mores and marriage. For most of the 20th century, marriage was the critical marker of the transition to adulthood. Once young people moved out of their parents' home, they generally spent very little time on their own, but instead married and "settled down." Individuals who did not follow this normative path were considered deviant and faced considerable social discrimination. Today marriage is no longer the critical gateway into adulthood. It is more optional than ever and it no longer has a virtual monopoly over the regulation of sexuality and child-rearing. At the same time, our expectations of married love are higher than ever before in history.

We will discuss the rise and fall of 20th-century courtship and marriage norms and explore the many controversies associated with the transformations of the last 30 years: the causes and consequences of divorce and remarriage; the changing role of singlehood and cohabitation in America; new gender roles and sexual norms, and the future of male-female relations, same-sex marriage and family life. This program will prepare students for more advanced work in a wide range of disciplines. In addition, it will sharpen skills of critical reading, effective writing, and in-depth analysis and argumentation. A side benefit, but not the main intent of the program, will be a better understanding of our own interpersonal concerns and conflicts, as we learn to put them in context, understand their origins, and see the larger social forces that affect even the supposedly most private, individual aspects of our lives.

This program is for students who have compelling questions they want to begin to answer. Because each person's question requires a different focus, a substantial amount of time will be devoted to individual projects. We will read and discuss a variety of books by and about people who sought answers to complex questions. We will formulate clear questions, develop approaches for seeking answers and create multiple ways of demonstrating knowledge.

In his innovative and passionate fiction, William Faulkner created a mythical southern kingdom, Jefferson, Mississippi, in Yoknapatawpha County, stretching along the banks of the Tallahatchie River, the one real landmark that served to remind us that this fictional world was intended to represent the South he knew and loved: from its beginnings as a land wrested by slave labor from the wilderness; to the bloody and bitter war that ended slavery and left a devastated and conquered land; to the lingering aftermath of that war and the continuing legacy of a past always haunting the present. This work was, as he described it in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, ".a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit." about ".the human heart in conflict with itself." and by it he left a lasting legacy in American literature.

This program will be an intensive examination of major works of fiction by this important writer, chosen from such works as Sartoris; The Sound and the Fury; As I Lay Dying; Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; The Unvanquished; The Hamlet; Go Down, Moses; Intruder in the Dust; The Town; The Mansion; and The Reivers, plus Faulkner's collected short stories. In addition, we will read literary criticism of Faulkner's work and a biography of the life and times of the writer. Students will write responses each week to the readings and will produce a longer expository paper on some chosen aspect of Faulkner's writing. We will pay particular attention to the structure and aesthetic qualities of the writings, and to their meaning and relevance, responding to the question: What is the writer doing, and how does he do it? We will read and discuss to understand and assess Faulkner's contribution to, and place in, American literature. Classes will be seminars and recitations in which students will be responsible for presenting their own expository writing and work.

Few things can be as durable as stone or as evanescent as words. Yet, both are elemental raw materials for human expression. We shape stone to shelter ourselves and to give meaning to space and form. We shape words to speak, to remember and to envision. This program will give students an opportunity to shape stone into sculpture and words into poetry to express both themselves and their place. We'll explore the expressive potential of each art form and the working process and craft of both.

Our program work will center around workshops in sculpture and poetry, with supporting readings, talks, seminars and writing assignments to give technical, historical and cultural contexts to the work. During the field trips, we will consider landscapes as the source for both material and inspiration in sculpture and poetry. In the sculpture studio we will draw, work with stones as found objects, and learn basic stone carving methods. We'll consider alternative ways to use stone expressively. In the poetry workshop we will read and study the work of selected poets, write poems, read them and respond critically to one another's work. The program goals are to advance expressive skills with words and images and to make and explore connections between stones and words, sculpture and poetry.