LU@YNP is an interdisciplinary project that immerses Longwood University students in the complex issues of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
This course will be taught in an “off-campus” mode just prior to and during first summer session. The course will open prior to the end of spring classes with an on-campus meeting. In the week after spring final exams (“senior week”), students will complete core readings and group activities from their homes.
The second week of class will take place in Yellowstone National Park, and it will afford students opportunities to experience firsthand the ecosystem and the management issues. Travel will be coordinated during the spring semester, and participation in this required course component requires a special fee. Activities in and around the park will be carefully structured and will focus on students’ interaction with a variety of stakeholders. Students will be required to take their laptops on the trip so that they can complete assignments in the evenings.
Upon returning home, the class will focus on local Virginia resource issues. An intensive analysis assignment will require students to identify and research a resource issue of local importance and apply what they have learned through their Yellowstone experiences to the local context. Students will participate in online discussions focused on particular segments of the assignment, and the entire analysis will culminate with on-line presentations of the local resource project.
This interdisciplinary course seeks to engage students in the analysis of contentious public issues (focused particularly on natural resources) using multiple disciplinary lenses. In so doing, students are challenged to apply their disciplinary training and work with their knowledge and skills developed through their General Education program to evaluate the ways in which citizens have addressed these difficult issues. In turn, students transfer what they have learned about citizens acting in other places to a complex public issue in our own community. They practice the application of skills, particularly writing for the public arena, toward greater understanding and appreciation of the local issue and the lives of active citizens.
