Land Use/Cover Data -- Instructor's Guide to Activities

| Goal | Learning Outcomes | Choice of Activities | Suggested Readings with Guiding Questions | | Activity 2.1 What's the problem anyway??? | Activity 2.2 Getting Wired for Global Change Research |

| Goal | Learning Outcomes | Suggested Readings with Guiding Questions | Choice of Activities | | Activity 2.3 Naming It -- Counting It: How Terminology Matters | Activity 2.4 Reading Between the Points | | Activity 2.5 Checking for Water-Tightness | Activity 2.6 Looking at the Blue Planet With Rose-Colored Glasses |

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Problem Formulation

Goal

Learning Outcomes

• have an understanding of the typical (if idealized) process of scientific research;
• be able to formulate a "researchable" problem; and
• understand the impacts of different problem formulations.

Choice of Activities

• 2.1 What's the problem anyway? -- Step-by-step research problem formulation
• 2.2 Getting wired for global change research -- Flow chart completion

Suggested Readings with Guiding Questions

Note: the Background Information of Unit 2 is quite lengthy and tedious at times. We suggest that the class be divided into six groups, each focussing on one of the discussed land use/cover types and their associated data issues. Each group prepares a short (5 minute) summary to be presented by one student during the class session (instead of a lecture).
1. What is the problem with global environmental change?
2. What are the problematic issues? For whom?
3. Why bother to find consistent, comparable, continuous data series?
4. Would we have a problem if we had perfect data?

1. How is land use/cover impacted by other global changes?
2. How does LULC change impact other environmental and human spheres?
3. What don't we know about LULC change? And so what?

Note: This is a critical piece on the issue of who sets what kind of research and policy agenda, written more from a political rather than scientific point of view. Students might require some background understanding that global change is a contentious issue. If you decide not to assign this reading, make sure students learn that it is in some other way.
1. Is global climate change "real" or is it merely a political problem?
2. Who are the players in this game?
3. Who sets the research and policy-making agenda? Who is left out?

The chapter from this introductory text on social science research methods gives students some background on the critical importance of problem formulation. If the chapter is used, you should guide undergraduates through the reading. Alternatively, use this or a similar text as lecture material.
1. How do you best formulate a research question?
2. What difference does it make how you formulate it?

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Activity 2.1 What's the problem anyway???

Goal

Skills

• connecting macro forces, proximate sources of change and LULC change in a research problem
• depicting underlying assumptions in LULC research questions
• determining appropriate measures for the variables of interest
• analytical thinking U group discussion and communicating

Material Requirements

Time Requirements

Tasks

Questions A, B Students read through questions A and B on the Student Worksheet 2.1 and discuss in small groups¹³ how LULC is related to global change and what we would really like to know about this relationship. They should end up with a succinct short (written) formulation of the problem (problem statement). The instructor (and teaching assistant, if available) go from group to group to support and stimulate this problem-stating process.

Instructors should assign individual students to roles during this discussion, such that there is a leader, a reporter, and a process-observer. If you have used small group discussion before, make sure students have different roles than they had previously.

Then groups should collect three to five research questions (one or two each) that directly address the research problem as formulated in the group's problem statement. If they find more than five questions, they should write down those five that are most important to them, and note why those particular five have been chosen.

It is advisable that the instructor demonstrate this process briefly beforehand with an example of his/her own research. Mention assumptions like "growth is good," "nature knows best," or "new technology solves problems." Then have students work on operationalization according to the example provided on Student Worksheet 2.1.

Don't let either part of this exercise go on for more than 8-10 minutes each. See Supporting Material 2.1 for an in-class illustration of the first two questions of this activity.

Take a short time to discuss the implications of the problem statement: Problem formulations from each group (or at least some examples) should be read to the class and written down on a blackboard or a projected blank transparency. Students should recognize and discuss the differences in problem statements. The instructor should help them recognize that some are better than others (and why) and that some are equally valid but just different (and why). Discuss the implications of differing perspectives, also referring to Brunner's article if students have read it. Take no more than 15 minutes for the collection of questions and the discussion.

Similarly, discuss the implications of the research questions: The specific research questions resulting from the problem formulation should be collected and written on a blackboard or a projected blank transparency (if possible such that they can be quickly related to the problem formulations collected in the previous task). Again, the instructor should help students recognize which ones really address the problem as stated, and that some are better than others (and why). Discuss at this point what kind of data would be needed to answer the specific research questions. Take no more than 10 minutes for this section.

Then have students answer the remaining questions of Activity 2.1 on the Student Worksheet.

C Question C has been prepared using the example provided on Supporting Materials 2.1 which hinted at potential problems with soil degradation data. You might elaborate on that in helping students answer this portion of the activity. You might also consider introducing students to data search on the Internet. Many important data sources are available on the world wide web. Initially this may be time consuming, but it is definitely worthwhile, given that this access venue is becoming ever more important for researchers. See the notes and some examples of such sources in the Supporting Materials section or List of Supporting Resources.

D Question D requires a hand-out. No example is provided, but possibilities for this exercise include a hand-out with a selection of three newspaper articles on the same subject, or a selection of a newspaper article, a personal report and a scientific article, or three paragraphs from papers by authors with very different theoretical and ideological approaches. Alternatively, compare and contrast texts that contain well-documented and not-so-well documented data, methodology and claims. Choose any topic that fits the larger purpose of your course, e.g., land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss, urban sprawl around a chosen city, or a local or regional issue of interest.

E Question E on the types of analyses one can undertake is an opportunity to extend the discussion to best suit the larger purpose of your class. You may not want to go into any more detail at this point of the exercise, or you may, after students have collected some ideas, want to point out the general distinction between qualitative and quantitative analysis methods and fit the students' examples into these categories. You might or might not give a prelude of the data analysis exercises that the class will do later on in this module.

Question F For this final step, students at this point have no actual data analysis to work with. You may demonstrate it with results and interpretations from your own research, or simply discuss the importance (and fun) of this final step in the research process.

Activity 2.2 is most effective if it follows this exercise because it allows students to summarize graphically what they just worked through step-by-step.

Activity 2.2 Getting Wired for Global Change Research

Goal

Skills

• translating text (or otherwise provided information) into a flow diagram
• recalling the steps of the research process
• abstraction from any specific LULC research problem to the general research process

Material Requirements

Time Requirements

Tasks

The instructor should again point out the critical importance of the problem formulation step. The exercise can be done as an in-class activity or a homework assignment that probably won't take more than 5 minutes, not including time for reading Berg's chapter.

Data Acquisition and Assessment

Goal

Learning Outcomes

• After completing this set of activities associated with Unit 2, students should:
• know important factors for assessing data quality
• understand the data-related limitations of global change research
• know the difference between systematic bias, randomness and measurement error
• have a sense for what is "good" data

Choice of Activities

2.3 Naming It -- Counting It: How Terminology Matters -- analysis of FAO sources for changes in LULC terminology and measurement

2.4 Reading Between the Points ... -- reading x/y-graphs, time series

2.5 Checking for Water-Tightness -- discussion on data quality

2.6 Looking at the Blue Planet With Rose-Colored Glasses -- interpreting news media for bias

Suggested Readings with Guiding Questions

The Background Information in Unit 2 systematically discusses types of land use/cover and the world-wide data, estimates, and problems with these sources. Again, since the entire text may be tedious to get through for students, assign different parts to different groups in the class and help students to the heart of the material with the following questions:
1. Is the glass of global change data half full or half empty?
2. What are the most important and reliable data sources for each land use/cover type discussed?
3. What can be said about the data quality of each?

A scientific text, a notch more demanding than the Background Information text. It contains a valuable discussion on problems dealt with in the student activities. In fact, some of the material for those activities is derived from this chapter.

1. What are some common problems with land use/cover data?
2. How is land cover/use information gathered?

This article is one of many making up this special issue of PE&RS on Global Change. Depending on the emphasis of the course as a whole and students' backgrounds, several other articles from that issue might be appropriate readings. Scientific style reading. Students should have some prior knowledge of the existence and uses of remote sensing data.
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of remotely sensed data?
2. How can data from different sources be combined to increase the land use/cover data base?

Activity 2.3 Naming It -- Counting It: How Terminology Matters

Goal

Skills

• critical reading of authoritative LULC terminology
• attentiveness to detail in LULC definitions and data compilation methodology
• group discussion and oral reporting

Material Requirements

• Student Worksheet 2.3 (provided)
• Access to FAO Production Yearbooks (alternatively, FAO reading provided in the Appendix)
• Suggested or alternative readings

Time Requirements

Tasks

Activity 2.4 Reading Between the Points ...

Goal

Skills

• concept comprehension
• reading x/y-graphs

Material Requirements

Time Requirements

Task

Then give them time to go over the next few explanations and look at the second set of graphs. Again, give students a few minutes at the outset to discuss what they do and do not understand about the graphs. Then they should mark the sample points that the left-hand graphs have in common and discuss the implications with their neighbor. The discussion takes ~ 10 minutes.

Activity 2.5 Checking for Water-Tightness

Goal

Skills

• brainstorming
• discussion
• critical thinking

Material Requirements

Suggested or alternative readings (e.g., a chapter from David Kummer's published dissertation which is an engaging example of "hunting" for reliable data on deforestation in the Philippines; see the References section for Kummer [1990b]).

Time Requirements

Task

The activity summarizes and goes beyond what students did in Activities 2.3 and 2.4. It might also be a good preparation for Activity 3.4.

Activity 2.6 Looking at the Blue Planet With Rose-Colored Glasses

Goal

Skills

• Critical assessment of data (quality)
• Discerning assumptions and bias underlying data and claims
• Group discussion or role play: argumentation with the goal to convince an audience

Material Requirements

Time Requirements

Task

After they have discussed the issues for a while, point out to students (if they haven't done so already themselves) that most often you have no data to cross-check their accuracy, and even if you do, you may not easily and sometimes not at all be able to determine whether or not there are errors and biases distorting the overall picture. That's (research) life! You can only do the best you can!

This activity may be adapted as an exercise for student pairs, a small group discussion, or even, after students have some grip on the ideas conveyed here as a role play in which individual students put on a certain pair of "rose-colored glasses." The objective would be for them to try to convince a review panel of scientists (i.e., the rest of the class) of the particular position they take on the chosen issue. After letting the students find their respective positions and strategies (this could occur in a 5-minute group talk), give each student a limited amount of time to make his or her statement. Encourage them to emphasize the quality of data they have at hand to back up their position. Finish by letting the class vote on which position they found most convincing (most credible, most reliable, most "water-tight").

Endnotes