Rigorous quantitative and qualitative research is an important component of academic learning in Environmental Studies. This independent learning opportunity is designed to allow advanced students to delve into real-world research with faculty who are currently engaged in specific projects. The program will help students develop vital skills in research design, data acquisition and interpretation, written and oral communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills—all of which are of particular value for students who are pursuing a graduate degree, as well as for graduates who are already in the job market.

The research conducted by the student will generally last multiple quarters and function as a capstone to the student’s academic work at Evergreen. Students can also take advantage of this opportunity to write a senior thesis. The following faculty are seeking advanced students to assist with their research projects.

Gerardo Chin-Leo studies marine phytoplankton and bacteria. His research interests include understanding the factors that control seasonal changes in the biomass and species composition of Puget Sound phytoplankton. In addition, he is investigating the role of marine bacteria in the geochemistry of estuaries and hypoxic fjords.

Dylan Fischer studies ecology and ecosystem function in forests. His research program includes a combination of field/lab work in riparian areas throughout the western United States, and field/lab research in southwest Washington. Much of this work focuses on genetic and/or evolutionary implications. Lab-based activities include image analysis of tree roots, analysis of plant materials, and meta-data analysis (analysis of previously collected data sets in a variety of ecosystems). Field work includes studies on species interactions, fluxes of nutrients, water and energy through ecosystems, carbon balance, global climate change, and restoration ecology.

Martha Henderson studies the ways in which humans transform Earth’s surfaces. She is particularly interested in cultural and social ideas that become evident in landscapes. Students interested in cultural landscapes, ethnic studies, environmental history, land-use patterns and urban agriculture are encouraged to develop projects. Qualitative research methodologies will be taught.

John Longino studies insect taxonomy and ecology, with specific research focus on ants. His research program is a combination of field work in Costa Rica and collections-based research at the Evergreen campus. Students may become involved in local or neotropical fauna studies, with field- and/or collections-based activities.

Lin Nelson is a social scientist who has worked with national and regional organizations doing research and advocacy on the linkages among environment, health and community. Students who would like to assist in developing case studies of environmental health in Northwest communities (with a focus on environmental justice and environment-labor connections) can contact her. A related area, for students with sufficient preparation, is the examination of Washington state’s plan to phase out selected persistent, bioaccumulative toxics.

Erik Thuesen conducts research on the ecological physiology of marine animals. He and his students are currently investigating the physiological, behavioral and biochemical adaptations of gelatinous zooplankton to estuarine hypoxia. Other research is focused on the biodiversity of marine zooplankton. Students working in his lab typically have backgrounds in different aspects of marine science, ecology, physiology and biochemistry.

This program will survey the history of African-American literature from its inception in African oral traditions and African-American slave narratives to its manifestation in contemporary genres such as rap and hip-hop poetry. We will read and discuss the poetry, fiction, folktales, short stories and historical autobiography or narratives written by Black authors from different generations. We will analyze the aesthetics and social, political and economic concerns in these writings in an attempt to uncover the fundamental role that literature has played in African-American struggle for freedom and equality.

The initial questions of this program will be inspired by critic William L. Andrews’s statement in the introduction to the Six Women’s Slave Narratives (1988) that “The birth of the Afro-American literary tradition occurred in 1773, when Phillis Wheatley published a book of poetry” (vii). This assertion begs the questions: “Does 1773 actually mark the beginning of African-American literary tradition?” “What continuities and transformations have developed in the tradition since its inception?” These questions suggest the difficulty of tracing the beginning of African-American literary tradition to one specific date when, as numerous scholars have shown, the African oral traditions that slaves brought to the Western world were already autonomous and fully-fledged literary forms of expression. By analyzing African-American literature through the lens of the scholarship about both racial struggle and African cultural retentions in America, this program intends to validate the various experiences and customs that shaped African-American culture.

Western science relies on mathematics as a powerful language for expressing the character of the observed world. Mathematical models allow predictions of the behavior of complex natural systems, and modern computing has magnified the power of those models and helped shape new models that increasingly influence 21st-century decisions. Computer science relies on mathematics for its culture and language of problem solving and also enables the construction of mathematical models. In fact, computer science is the constructive branch of mathematics.

This program explores connections between mathematics, computer science and the natural sciences, and will develop mathematical abstractions and skills needed to express, analyze and solve problems arising in the sciences, particularly computer science. The emphasis is fluency in mathematical thinking and expression, along with reflections on mathematics and society. Topics include concepts of algebra, functions, algorithms and programming; and calculus, logic or geometry; all with relevant historical and philosophical readings.

We will also address psychological, pedagogical and development aspects of mathematics teaching and learning to broaden our own and others’ understanding beyond where some of us got “stuck” in our earlier involvement with mathematics.

The program is intended for students who want to gain a fundamental understanding of mathematics and computing before leaving college or pursuing further work in the sciences.

"Speaking from my own special area of American culture, I feel that to embrace uncritically values which are extended to us by others is to reject the validity, even the sacredness, of our own experience." -Ralph Ellison

This program will ask how peoples historically consigned to the margins of the American social order have managed to be highly influential in shaping the culture of the nation, and how the character of American society has, in turn, shaped them. We will consider a range of groups, with special attention to Black, Jewish, and Hispanic experiences. They, like many of America's peoples, have shared legacies of geographical dispersion from the Old World, discrimination and a sense of otherness, and the creation of rich identities and communities based on identification with older worldviews and folkways that preceded life in the United States.

We will ask: How have members of these and other groups, building on the validity of their own experiences, remade themselves? How did they figure out how to make a living, participate in the arts and in political life, raise families, practice religious traditions, build bridges with their neighbors, and deal with hostility and oppression? How did they innovate, challenge, and transform American culture? And how have they embraced and conformed to its values?

In exploring these questions, we will look closely at the different ways these Americans have understood the "American Dream." In 1901, for example, Booker T. Washington, born a slave and founder of one of the first African American colleges in the United States, wrote: "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." In the 20th century, this ethic of hard work was challenged by a new range of values associated with financial success, entertainment, and participation in a rapidly expanding consumer culture. According to historian William Leach, the American Dream of overcoming obstacles was eclipsed by the "democratization of desire": the right to want anything and everything regardless of hard work. What has the American Dream meant for people still working to achieve basic rights associated with American citizenship? For their children's generation? And their children? For example, we will examine the emergence of varied forms of entrepreneurship across generations, which both served transplanted peoples and drew them into the broader contours of American society.

This program offers students an intensive focus on writing, interpretation and research. Student projects will involve library and ethnographic work, including opportunities to explore the ethnic and/or religious heritage of a community, family or acquaintances. We will read novels, histories, folklore, essays, and cultural studies, listen to music and watch films, and hear from an array of guest speakers. We will be constantly attentive to matters of gender, race, class, ethnicity and religiosity.

All writing comes from somewhere, emerges through authors, and inscribes upon our consciousness stories of who we are and where we come from. American letters have both reflected and constituted the world we, diverse peoples, have created for ourselves on this continent. American writing provides a panoply of accounts, narratives, poems and fictions that capture and create the place(s) of America. The narratives of slaves, the poems of Gary Snyder, the journals of Lewis and Clark, the novels of Leslie Marmon Silko help us to think about what sort of place we have written into existence. This program expects participants to think about the place we have created through an intensive survey of our literature. What is distinctly American about these experiences? How have these accounts been instrumental in the making of these American places?

In the fall quarter, we will investigate how the twin forces of democracy and industrialization, coupled with romanticism, underlie narratives of the exploration/exploitation of the land and peoples of America. Cooper, Melville and Twain can help us see how the romantic and industrial intertwined to become an American culture. As we engage these narratives, we will simultaneously work on creating life history narratives of 20th- and 21st-century experience through interviews and creative non-fiction writing.

Winter quarter, as we move into the 20th century, the complexity of American’s self-understanding, the diversity of experience and the multi-ethnic writing of the American story become critical. The struggle for a place in America and the American imagination, the revoicing and creation of the modern world forge a whole new reading of the place of Americans within their country and in the world.

This program will take very seriously readings in a wide survey of American letters from the 18th through the 20th century, and will take equally seriously writing about reading, about experience and about imagination. We believe that good writing is the product of serious reading of and reflection on excellent writing. The program will provide instruction in essay, creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry. This will require us to develop both our imaginative grasp of the world around us and the experiences that have brought America into being.

Are you curious about the world around you? Have you ever wondered why a particular event did or did not occur, and how the circumstances leading up to it may have changed the outcome and the future? How has scientific analysis changed how we view the world over time? How has forensic evidence affected the outcome of court trials, currently and in the past? How can we more fully understand our environment and predict changes that will occur in the future? These are the types of questions we will address in this two-quarter program.

We will use scientific approaches to examine both historical and current events. As an example, few historical events are as popular with conspiracy theorists as the JFK assassination. Also, prior to DNA fingerprinting and other modern forensic analytical techniques, the outcomes of many court trials would likely have been different. We will analytically study and review historical and current data and use scientific approaches to come to our own conclusions. We will also examine our environment, such as local water use and pollution issues.

We will learn modern methods of scientific analysis used in cutting edge scientific research and forensic science and we will critically evaluate our data. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques will be emphasized, including learning the use and application of state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation (scanning electron microscopy, gas and thin-layer chromatography, ultra-violet and infra-red spectroscopy) and equipment used in fieldwork. Scientific analysis will be the basis for our work, not conjecture, gut feeling and/or supposition. In science “data is king.”

In winter quarter, we will learn how to define scientific questions and critically evaluate data, and we will learn fundamental lab and field techniques. Spring quarter will focus more on project work using the skills we develop in winter quarter. We will work predominantly in the lab and in small group problem-solving workshops; group work and student presentations will be significant components of the program.

This program is designed for all students who want to gain a more analytical and scientific approach to the world around them, using historical and real world situations.

Students will be evaluated based on their laboratory and fieldwork, laboratory reports, class presentations and homework assignments.

What do animals do? How do animals achieve these things? Why do animals do what they do? In this program, students will begin to answer these questions with extensive use of the existing literature and by generating their own data in independent research projects. Animals hibernate, forage, mate, form social groups, compete, communicate, care for their young, and so much more. They do so with the tools of their physiology, anatomy, and, in some cases, culture, for reasons having to do with their particular ecology and evolutionary history. By focusing on the interplay between ecology and evolution, we can understand animal behavior.

In this program, we will begin with a review of animal diversity and continue our studies of behavior from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Students will be expected to engage some of the complex, and often contradictory, scientific predictions and results that have been generated in this field, as well as undertake their own intensive field research. After studying the methods, statistical tests, and literature base frequently used in behavioral research, students will generate their own hypotheses, and go into the field to test them over several weeks of research. Research will be written up into scientific papers and presented to the entire program in a mini-conference in the final week.

Some topics that we will focus on include mating systems, territoriality, female mate choice, competition, communication, parental care, game theory, plant/animal interactions and convergent evolution. Seminar readings will focus on one group of animals in particular: the primates, including Homo sapiens.

Books hold a place in our imaginations paralleled by few other daily objects. They symbolize the intellect, the vast resources of fantasy, the whole of human history, and they can contain, in some manner, almost anything we wish them to. The rise of digital and internet technology has made at least a theoretical threat to an established culture of the book. It is in this potentially transitional moment that we, as writers, artists, and book-lovers, can articulate both old and new relationships to the book as a creative form, as an institution, and as the material container of consciousness.

We will take a creative approach to understanding the cultural and material history of the book. The first half of the quarter will be devoted to developing techniques in image production and creative writing practice through workshops and critique. Our study of writing and art will be consistently grounded in the idea of the book and the relationship between visual art and language. We'll develop a basic understanding of the cultural and material history of the book; we'll consider what it means to regard the book as an artistic medium by making books with our hands using ancient and alternative techniques. Students will practice skills for merging images and texts into this unique and singular form and examine the emerging discourse of artists' books as a revitalization of the book's potential.

Art, Media, Praxis is an intermediate to advanced interdisciplinary arts program examining current issues in contemporary visual and media arts. The program will engage both theory and practice (praxis) in the pursuit of a forum for interdisciplinary collaboration. We will focus on the intersections between visual arts and the moving image, examining installation and site-specific works. Students will develop their skills in critical writing as well as art/media production. Students entering the program will be expected to be proficient in one medium (e.g., painting, film, printmaking, video, animation, photography, drawing, digital media, sculpture, etc.) and will develop at least one interdisciplinary collaborative project in addition to the opportunity for pursuing individual work.

This program will include periods of intensive study in contemporary art/media theory with readings, film screenings, field trips and guest artists. During the fall, visual arts and media skills will be assessed, and supplemental workshops will be offered to build student skills in video, sculpture, film, printmaking, and/or photography (depending on needs). To build writing skills, students will produce at least four critical analyses of visual/media artworks. During winter, students will produce collaborative works that merge visual arts and the moving image. To inform this work, students will develop interdisciplinary research projects into a final paper and class presentation. Students will also develop their skills in proposal development, culminating in a proposal for spring project work that incorporates both visual and media arts.

This program offers students an opportunity to learn basic seamanship, the sailing arts, and coastal navigation aboard the Yawl Resolute. Students will learn power cruise and sail seamanship, become part of a working crew, learn "the rules of the road," tides and currents, weather, boating safety and regulations, coastal navigation (not celestial) and various sailor's arts including knots, splices, hitches, reefs and the correct use of lines in docking and un-docking. The program will be demanding and include a reading and writing schedule covering the history and development of sail and Northwest maritime history. The development of leadership and teamwork skills is a primary goal. This program is intended for students who want to do more than just learn how to sail. Sailing days will generally consume a full day. Students must be willing to sail in any weather condition, work and study hard.

Atlanta, 2007, is designed to explore the relationship between the recent phenomenon of "world social forums" and the actual creation and development of domestic social movements.

The first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January, 2001. Organizers of this forum and subsequent forums in Porto Alegre, India and Venezuela saw these events primarily as a space for dialogue by those forces opposed to the neo-liberal policies of privatization, de-regulation and free trade promoted by the World Economic Forum centered in Davos, Switzerland. These World Social Forums have spawned numerous other national and regional forums throughout the world.

The first US Social Forum will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, June 27 through July 1, 2007. Unlike other forums, the organizers of the US Social Forum say that "the work to build the US Social Forum is not to build an event but to build a process that pushes a stronger movement forward."

We will take advantage of the organizing of the US Social Forum to explore the relationship between "events" and movements. We'll study theories and dynamics of social movements, the specific history and internal dynamics of the World Social Forum and its competitor, the World Economic Forum. And, in particular we will assess whether domestic social movements that oppose the neo-liberal policies of privatization, de-regulation and free trade have grown stronger as a result of participation in social forums and in the planning for the US Social Forum. We will also look at critiques of the World Social Forum, such as those provided by the organizers of the Mumbai Resistance, which was organized parallel to the WSF in Mumbai, India, as well as debates within the social forum about its future direction.

Students should be prepared for heavy reading in both social movement theory and history. In addition, students will write analytical papers dissecting contemporary social movements, as well as analytical papers critiquing the issues before the US Social Forum. Also, as part of the work of this class, we will organize or assist in organizing a "preparatory forum" for the Olympia community to discuss the main themes under consideration by the US Social Forum in Atlanta.

The faculty and perhaps some students are continuing work begun in “Awareness” in winter and spring quarters, 2005. Any student is invited to join this program at the beginning of any quarter.

The modern university is based on a rupture, effected a millennium ago, between head and heart. This institution—the one in which we meet as teachers and students—is devoted almost exclusively to the technical and critical disciplines. Ascetic disciplines were left in the proverbial dust. Secularization rendered proverb and metaphor, even language itself, disenfleshed and idolatrized. Our task in this program is to become deeply aware of the devastation caused by this rupture, this loss. Because of what has been betrayed, we dare not simply imagine an alternative form of education, much less another new institution, devoted to the healing of this rupture or the recovery of any loss. Instead, we will, through disciplined, mutually supportive inquiry, become mindful of what we scholars participate in, here and now.

Students will begin their work by designing independent learning projects. These field studies, which will constitute half of each quarter’s work, can be anything (community service, sailing, midwifery, writing, gardening, Aikido, reading, etc.). We will begin our work together by answering these questions: What do you want to learn? How are you going to learn it? How are you going to know when you have learned it? How are you going to show others—faculty and colleagues—that you have learned it? And, what difference will it make?

As a learning community, we will participate in mind-body practices, as well as bookish study, that facilitate and enhance our ability to reflect on our current situation in historical, cross-cultural and gendered contexts.