Interactions Among Driving Forces, Proximate Sources, and the Impacts of Land Use/Land Cover Change--Instructor's Guide to Activities

| Goal | Learning Outcomes | Choice of Activities | Suggested Readings with Guiding Questions |
| Activity 1.1 | Activity 1.2 | Activity 1.3 | Activity 1.4 | Activity 1.5 | Activity 1.6

Starter Activity/Questions

• Why should I care that "they" are cutting down the rainforest? It's so far away anyway.
• Have you ever seen a clear cut area? What did it look like? What effects do you think a clear cut would have on the forest animals, on the soil, on the local climate? Did you see whether that same spot was reforested later? If it wasn't reforested, did anything grow there after a while?
• Is it not just cosmetics when we clean and prop up our neighborhoods on Earth Day?
• Imagine two farmers working their fields: one in Iowa, the other in Indonesia -- who contributes more to global environmental change? Why? Is that answer really so easy?
• What is "global warming"? Does it have anything to do with the "ozone hole"? And if you think so, what?
• What's the difference between global climate change and global environmental change? How are they linked?
• How do you imagine [fill in local (well-known) examples: your local wetland, the prairie, the old growth forest, the water reservoir, a habitat for a rare species, etc.] to change if our climate changes to [fill in regional expectations for a changed climate such as warmer and drier]?
• Imagine your city planners want to build a new highway around the city. Promoters of the new highway claim that it will do away with the daily traffic jams that frustrate hundreds of thousands of commuters every day. You are an environmental consultant who is to evaluate the proposed project from an ecological point of view. Because you are very concerned about global change, you consider not only local but also regional to global effects of extending traffic routes for motor vehicles. Think of driving forces, proximate sources, and impacts. Make a list of all the possible consequences -- positive and negative -- you can think of and compare them with your classmates' lists.

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Conceptual Understanding

Goal

Students learn to distinguish the concepts central to this module, land use and land cover. They use the definitions provided in the Background Information and the assigned readings, and apply them to LULC maps available at the institution, or -- if that is not possible -- to the maps provided with this module.

Learning Outcomes

After completing the activities associated with this unit, students should:

• know the difference between land use and land cover;
• be able to read a LULC map;
• know why LULC is an important dimension in the study of the HDGC;
• have had some practice taking "good" notes on readings.

Choice of Activities

1.1 Taking Good Notes -- Generic note-taking skills

1.2 Before You Lived Here... -- Informal interviewing

1.3 Reading Land Use and Land Cover Maps -- Map reading and interpretation

1.4 Linking Regional Land Use/Cover and Global Change -- Essay writing

1.5 Field Trip: The Changing Landscape -- Field trip, landscape interpretation

1.6 Film: "Spaceship Earth" -- Critical film analysis

Suggested Readings with Guiding Questions

The following readings are recommended to accompany the activities for this unit and to supplement the Background Information. Choose those readings most appropriate for the activities you select and those most adequate for the skill level of your students. Guiding questions help students focus while reading.

• Background Information, Unit 1 (provided; or else use this in a lecture with the provided overheads)
  Is global change something new in the history of the earth?

  What's the difference between changes in prehistoric times and now?

  What types of global environmental changes are there?

  What does land use/cover change have to do with global environmental change?

• Ojima, D.S., K.A. Galvin, and B.L. Turner II. 1994. The global impact of land use change. BioScience 44, 5: 300-304.
  A short scientific paper that repeats part of the Background Information. Better to read after basic concepts have been explained through an in-class discussion or the Background Information.

  How is global land use and land cover change related to other global environmental changes?

  How are they related to the macro forces and the proximate sources of change?

  How certain is our scientific knowledge about these interrelated issues?

• Meyer, William B. 1995. Past and present land use and land cover in the USA. Consequences 1, 1: 24-33.
  An easy read, also picking up parts of the Background Information, but specific to the United States.

  What is land use? What is land cover? Examples for each?

  How has the land use and land cover changed in the US?

  Are humans merely destructive to their environment? Why or why not?

• Heilig, Gerhard K. 1995. Neglected dimensions of global land-use change: Reflections and data. IIASA Reprint from Population and Development Review 20, 4: 831-859.
  This is a more critical paper, complementary rather than essential, but a nice introduction to some of the exercises that students will do in the beginning.

  What are the acknowledged and what the neglected dimensions of global change according to the author?

  Write down some examples of these neglected dimensions and what their connection is to land use change!

• Other introductory readings related to the basic concepts of HDGC (at instructor's discretion; see also section Additional Readings under Supporting Materials).

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Activity 1.1 Taking Good Notes

The activity is meant to teach the generic skill of good note-taking from a reading. Students should become accustomed to taking notes on almost everything they read for the class as it helps them structure, understand, and recall more readily the information contained in a text.

Skills

• note-taking
• text comprehension

Student Worksheet 1.1 (provided)

Supporting Material 1.1 "Taking notes that make sense -- even in a year from now ..." (provided)

Suggested or alternative readings listed for Activity 1 (some provided)

Time Requirements

Variable (depending on length of chosen readings and students' skill levels)

Task

Students learn with the help of guiding questions (see Suggested Readings above) and the help of their instructor, how to take good notes on their readings, i.e., they learn to discern the structure of a text, and subsequently to structure their own notes, to paraphrase the main argument(s), and to distinguish "important" information from "text fillers."

A hand-out on note-taking is provided (Supporting Material 1.1). Make this a "standard" exercise that students learn to do automatically as they read assigned class material.

The time required varies with the length of the readings and students' reading skills and ease with the material. Instructors should choose readings accordingly.

Activity 1.2 Before You Lived Here...

Students learn to distinguish two basic concepts -- land use and land cover -- and apply them by examining through a variety of sources the local land use/cover history.

Skills

• relating general HDGC and LULC concepts to students' specific local situation
• informal interviewing
• data searching
• oral reporting

Student Worksheet 1.2 (provided)

(Possibly access to old local maps, archival information, development plans, etc.)

Time Requirements

Preparation outside of class: 1-2 days

In-class reports: >15 minutes

Task

Students learn to distinguish between land use and land cover by looking at an example very close to home. Ask them to find out about the land use and land cover history of the general area or even just the lot on which the building they currently live in or their parents' house is built. They should seek as much information as possible, going back in time as far as possible, using old maps, archival information, old development plans, but also oral information from their parents and grandparents if possible, old photographs, even drawings or paintings if such exist.

Sources for such material range from family photo albums, to libraries and map libraries, to historical societies' archives, and town planning offices. The results of their findings could be presented in a number of creative ways, depending on skills, interests, and time given to this activity. Students might give an oral report, design a poster, or write a short (maximum of 3 pages) summary including maps or pictures, and quantitative information if available.

Make sure students clearly distinguish land uses and land covers. You might also challenge them to infer land cover (at least roughly) from a known land use. The exercise is a take-home exercise (that could be adjusted as a task for pairs of students), but in-class report of findings and/or debriefing may take at least 10-15 minutes.

Activity 1.3 Reading Land Use and Land Cover Maps

Students learn to distinguish land cover from land use by reading maps, i.e., they must understand the difference in meaning between these concepts and apply them correctly to the concrete examples shown on a land use/cover map using the map legend. Assuming a change in the land uses/covers they detect, students then learn to determine when an environmental change becomes global, and what type of change (using the introduced typologies from the Background Information) it constitutes.

Skills

• map reading
• application of general definition of LULC concepts to concrete map examples
• inversely, abstraction from concrete examples to general LULC concepts

Access to LULC map sheets or atlases in sufficient numbers for the class

(see e.g., the Map Supplement Seasonal land-cover regions of the United States in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85, 2, with text, ibid., 339-335 [text provided])

Student Worksheet 1.3 (provided)

Time Requirements

10-20 minutes in class

Tasks

Students or instructors choose a region in an atlas or on a provided thematic map sheet (e.g., vegetation cover, land uses like agriculture or forestry, etc.) and learn to read the map using the legend. This may well be [if available] a map of their locale or region, or a region that is thematically central to the remainder of the course. Students determine which of the categories depict land use, which land cover. The basic alternatives here are that students either list land uses and land covers in these categories, or that they determine which of two maps shows land use and which land cover. This requires students' understanding and recall of the land use and land cover definitions provided in the Background Information or on the overheads (originals for overheads provided in the Supporting Materials section).

Then ask students to assume changes in these land uses and land covers and ask them to determine whether such change would constitute systemic or cumulative global change. When would this change become global in scope? Why would it be the type of global change they believe it is? Would it be a change in material flows, energy flows, the physical structure of the environment, or in the biota? Students must apply the two types of classification of global changes introduced in the first unit.

Many maps are suitable for this activity. Most basic atlases of the world, the US, or any other country contain thematic maps on natural vegetation cover, land forms, or certain aspects of the environment (all types of land cover) and land use. Because these maps are usually in color, they are more difficult and expensive to reproduce for this activity. The same is true for USGS map sheets (topographic or thematic), or CIA country maps that usually have small inserts of land use and land cover maps; but if those are accessible to your class, they constitute a rich and copyright-free resource. Also suitable are monographs that treat land use or land cover of any given country and geography textbooks. Both may contain color or black and white maps that could be used here, the latter of which would be more easily reproduced. If map resources are scarce and/or copyright restrictions too great an obstacle, students could use the provided maps (Supporting Material 1.3)--see also Figure 14.

This activity is designed as an in-class exercise, and requires 10-20 minutes depending on students' map reading skills.

Activity 1.4 Linking Regional Land Use/Cover and Global Change

Students relate local to regional land use/cover changes to global human driving forces and understand the importance of land use/cover change in the context of global change research.

Skills

• interpreting LULC information (whatever is found, provided or known about the region)
• text comprehension
• relational thinking
• essay (letter, report) writing
• ( alternatively, group discussion [arguing, leading, note-taking, process evaluating])

Access to information on land use and land cover of the region (could include maps, remote sensing imagery or areal photography if feasible; also written descriptions and students' personal knowledge).

Student Worksheet 1.4 (provided)

Time Requirements

Preparation outside of class 1-2 days

(In-class discussion 25 minutes)

Task

Students write a short essay, describing the land use and land cover of a region of their choice (or continuing with the region studied in Activity 1.3), speculating (with, at a minimum, the Background Information provided in Unit 1) how these regional land uses and land covers are connected to global environmental change. For example, what does deforestation of old growth forest have to do with global change? What are the causes, the macro/driving forces and the proximate sources of change? Instead of an essay, you may choose to assign a different text genre, e.g., ask students to write about global LULC change and human driving forces in the form of a letter to a friend, a newspaper article, or a travel report that will appear in a glossy magazine.

Students should use appropriate caution in making causal connections. Mainly, their essay/

writing should explain why LULC is important in the study of the HDGC. Encourage students to rely on some of the readings suggested for Activity 1. (See also Notes on Active Pedagogy for suggestions on writing essays.)

Alternatively, if your class is too large for even short essay writing to be feasible, the same issues can be discussed in small groups in class. In that case, assign individual students in each group to the roles of discussion leader, reporter (taking notes on the main arguments), and process observer (making sure that everyone gets involved and has a chance to speak). The instructor functions as an external observer, facilitating light-handedly if necessary, and encouraging students to think creatively and to look for agreement on specific linkages between the regional situation and global change.

Overall, look for the creative use of local or regional, pertinent examples. Before you assign this task, make your expectations clear to them. Stress what you are looking for, perhaps giving one clarifying example of a "linkage."

Activity 1.5 Field Trip: The Changing Landscape

Students engage in the art of observation and then interpretation of the mosaic of physical and human structures that make up the landscape. They see how "real" human activities bring about land use/cover patterns.

Skills

• application of abstract understanding of LULC concepts to "the real world"
• taking field notes
• landscape observation and interpretation

Transportation to field site(s)

Note pad and pen

Time Requirements

1 half day

Task

This is an optional activity, and one that may be undertaken in connection with a field trip for other purposes. Field trips have the great benefit of making abstract concepts and relationships very "real" because students connect classroom knowledge with examples of things familiar.

Point out to students with a few examples, and then have them distinguish land uses and land covers in the landscape. If students completed Activity 1.2, you may refer to historical land use and land cover once in place where they now see a modern human landscape. It is quite possible to see signs of historical land uses side by side with those of modern ones.

Students should take field notes and either write a one page field trip report, or include what they saw in other exercises in this or later activities of this module.

Activity 1.6 Film: "Spaceship Earth"

The film is meant to capture students' attention for the subject matter of geography and global change in general. It can be used by the instructor as a way to assess students' knowledge of these matters at the beginning of this unit/module.

Skills

• film comprehension
• interpretation of information
• critical discussion of movie

A copy of the educational video series "Spaceship Earth"

Ten units of 30 minutes each, two episodes per video cassette; written by Nigel Cader. The series explores global geography using satellite remote sensing, computerized mapping, live film footage, and animation. The themes of the series focus on issues of ecology, economics, and pollution, and are thus well suited as a lead into the linkages between geography and global changes. The titles of the ten units are:
Cassette 1 (Parts 101 and 102): The new global geography -- Living quarters

Cassette 2 (Parts 103 and 104): Restless rock -- A global market

Cassette 3 (Parts 105 and 106): The air conditioning -- The swirling sea

Cassette 4 (Parts 107 and 108): Running water -- The disappearing forest

Cassette 5 (Parts 109 and 110): Feast or famine? -- The watchkeepers

Note: This film, co-produced in 1991 by Teleac and Holland and Paravision for South Carolina ETV can be obtained either from the producers directly or through interlibrary loan just for the class session in which you plan to show the film. Allow sufficient time to acquire a copy of the film.

30 minutes of viewing time per section

10 minutes of follow-up discussion

Task

Chose any section of this educational series to introduce students to the general subject area. Ask them to take notes of what they think is remarkable, memorable, interesting, disturbing about it. Use these comments as a basis for an in-class reflection on and discussion of the movie, and as a lead-in into the readings and other activities associated with this unit. Don't let the discussion get too long (a maximum of 10 minutes) or even drag (see Notes on Active Pedagogy).

An alternative to the discussion may be to ask students to imagine, speak, or write a reaction paper to some of the conditions or dilemmas and difficult problems presented in the film.

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