Lesson 1 - Orientation and Syllabus

Lesson 1 Overview

Objectives:

For this week, you should carefully read through the syllabus and the orientation for the course.

By the end of this week:

students will understand the course policies, course structure, different types of assignments, and their contribution to final grades;
students will introduce themselves to the class and read introductions of classmates.

Lesson 1 Checklist

Tasks
To Read	Carefully read the Course Orientation Lesson 1 pages.	Use the links below to continue moving through the lesson material.
To Read	The Course Syllabus.	The syllabus is in Canvas — under 'Syllabus' and under 'Modules / Important Course Information'
To Read	Chapter 1 of Moseley, W. G., Perramond, E., Hapke, H. M., & Laris, P. (2014). An introduction to human-environment geography: local dynamics and global processes. John Wiley & Sons.	Located in the Lesson 1 module.
To Submit	Complete the Introduce Yourself discussion Get familiar with Perusall through this week's reading	Located in the Lesson 1 module.

Note: Please refer to the Calendar in Canvas for specific time frames and due dates.

In the following pages, you will find important information about the course structure, requirements, scheduling, and technical requirements and assistance.

Course Structure, Description and Objectives

Course Structure:

This course will be conducted entirely online. There are no set class meeting times, but you will be required to complete weekly assignments. In this course, registered students will need to navigate between several online environments.

These include:

this site - the instructional materials in this site include weekly course materials, including course Introduction and Orientation (Week 1), the syllabus, and several other helpful supplemental pages;
Canvas - Penn State's course management system; in this course, we'll use Canvas for our course calendar, to communicate, to access some of the readings and films, to submit assignments, and to post grades.
Perusall [1] - an online platform that creates a shared learning environment through collaborative annotations on a PDF. This is were you will complete all reading assignments. You can find detailed instructions on how you will use Perusall for this course in the Perusall guidelines tab in the Important Course Information module for details.

Course Description:

Geography 430 examines the human use of resources and ecosystems, the multiple causes and consequences of environmental degradation, and adaptive institutional and policy arrangements as prerequisites for resilient and sustainable management and development in different parts of the world. The major objective of this course is to help geographers, earth scientists, and other professionals develop an awareness and appreciation of the multiple perspectives that can be brought to studies of human use of the environment and of the ways in which resource-management decisions are made in human society. This is a capstone course that encourages students to place their individual major and technical skills within the context of multiple approaches to environmental decision-making and management in complex and dynamic social-ecological systems. GEOG 430 is designed as a collective/social learning experience. This implies that the professor and students share responsibility for the learning process and take advantage of collective skills, insights, experiences, and efforts of each other. As in system dynamics, this requires both commitment and flexibility and the willingness to explore foreign territory. As part of this philosophy, learning consists not only of information flow from professor to student but also from student to student and student to professor.

Learning Objectives for the Course:

Describe the changing relationships between people and their environments, the causes and consequences of environmental degradation, strategies for building a more sustainable world, and the methods and approaches that scholars have used to describe human-environment interactions.
Explain the complexity of human-environment systems.
Interpret, analyze and communicate effectively regarding human-environment interactions in their lives as students, professionals, and citizens (critical thinking and synthesis of ideas, map interpretation, searching for and finding and assessing academic sources and writing).
Analyze and critique competing approaches intended to achieve environmental conservation and sustainability.

Required Course Materials

All of the materials will be embedded in the course website and posted on Canvas corresponding to the appropriate lesson. You are not required to purchase a textbook for this class.

Course Assignments and Schedule

Course Assignments:

Please read the syllabus in Canvas to ensure you understand the assignments due in this course!

Typical Schedule of Weekly Activities:

Within any given week, most assignments can be completed on your schedule. Weekly materials on Canvas unlock every Friday at midnight and reading assignments will be due the next Sunday at midnight, giving you 10 days to complete them. Please check Canvas for specific due dates and announcements.

Topics by Week:

Lesson 1 - Introductions
Lesson 2 - Global Environmental Change and Planetary Boundaries
Lesson 3 - Complex Social-Ecological Systems
Lesson 4 - Environmental Governance
Lesson 5 - Environmental Justice
Lesson 6 - The Food-Energy-Water Nexus and Environmental Impacts of Agriculture
Lesson 7 - Food (Food Security, Food Sovereignty, and Agroecology)
Lesson 8 - Energy
Lesson 9 - Water
Lesson 10 - Biodiversity Conservation
Lesson 11 - Land Use Change
Lesson 12 - Climate Change
Week 13 to 15 - Course Wrap Up

Course Communications

Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of a successful online class. Canvas supports several types of communication, as described below. Registered students have Penn State email accounts (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.

Announcements

These are messages from your instructor that contain important information. Current announcements can be accessed through the Announcements link in Canvas. Announcements may highlight assignment due dates, changes to due dates, tips for how to do well on future assignments, and other essential course information. Announcements are made when the instructor needs to communicate with the class, including to notify the class of changes to due dates and the syllabus.

Communications from the University and from the World Campus

Occasionally, the University or the World Campus needs to communicate with students. To do so, they use the @psu.edu email address that each registered student has been given and not Canvas course email. In addition, a letter, in PDF format, that reports your final course grade will be automatically generated and sent to your @psu.edu email address. It is important that you regularly monitor your @psu.edu email account.

Setting Communication Preferences

Canvas Profile and User Settings let you control your personal information in Canvas. Take a few minutes to personalize your Canvas profile by following the instructions below. Follow the instructions on the Canvas Profile and User Settings page to customize important aspects of your profile including, but not limited to, your preferred email address(es) and text (SMS) contact method for course notifications, your time zone, and your profile picture.

You have the option to select how, when, and for what information you would like to receive notifications. This can be very helpful when keeping track of items such as discussion posts, assignment due dates, and exams. Visit the Canvas Notification Preference Support page (link is external) and follow the instructions for setting up your notification preferences.

Click on the 'Profile' link. Set your notification preferences.

To ensure that your Canvas email messages forward to your regular email account immediately, check the "Notify me right away" option (the checkmark) for each item under "Conversations" in Notification Preferences.

In the Time Zone drop-down menu, select a time zone for your course.

Consider downloading the Canvas App!

Academic Integrity

There has been a troubling increase in the number of cases of academic integrity violations, which span from honest mistakes to cases where students know the behavior is "copying" or purchasing work but still do it anyway.

All of the following are forms of academic integrity violations:

copying and pasting without quotations
failing to cite the source of your ideas
copying and pasting into an online "paraphrasing tool"
presenting someone else's material as your own
using someone else's material from a study help site
purchasing assignments or essays
seeking or sharing information about the questions or answers on a quiz or exam
other forms of cheating or dishonesty

Throughout the course, you will be regularly writing and submitting written assignments. Every element of a submission should be either (1) your original work, or (2) a properly cited idea of somebody else's. If you want to mention somebody else's idea in your work, you should follow an established set of rules for doing so. In this class, we use the APA citation style for all citations done in all assignments. More information can be found in the 'Quick Guide to Citations' in the 'Resources' menu. Be aware that the material you submit for this course will be compared with online material using tools like Turnitin.

In terms of quizzes, you must not have in your possession any preliminary information about the specific quiz questions or correct/incorrect answers to them. Yes, they are open-book quizzes, but the only things you can refer to is raw course materials and your own notes about them. Sharing answers with classmates or seeking answers on websites such as Course Hero is an intentional violation of academic integrity.

Penn State does not exempt you from consequences even when the violation was done without sufficient knowledge ("honest mistakes"). So, please make yourself aware of what constitutes a breach of academic integrity.

Please have a look at Penn State resources (Undergrad Advising Handbook [2] and a web page from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences [3]) to see what academic integrity is and what consequences it might bring when breached.

Information to Avoid Common Mistakes

Please use both (1) an in-text citation and (2) an end-of-the-document citation (a.k.a. reference list, works cited list) per one work cited. For full credit, you must use BOTH in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your assignments.
When you are borrowing somebody else's idea in a word-for-word manner ("direct quotes"), use quotation marks along with an in-text citation. Failing to do so constitutes a breach of academic integrity.

Example:

As the heroine of Little Women notes, Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents.
(Wrong)

As the heroine of Little Women notes, "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents" (Alcott, 1868, pg. #).
(Correct)

Citation (end-of-the-document) information that frequently gets left out

In this course, we seek to provide a learning experience to practice proper citing of other people's works. Some websites, for example, deliberately omit some essential citation information. It is up to you to make sure that you provide complete citation information in your submissions of weekly questions and reactions, current event discussions, and the final essay.

Typically, the citation on a website lacks the following information about the cited material you need to fill in for your assignments:

For Articles:

Full journal name - it is NOT the same as the name of the web database service. No Science Directs or Wileys, please.
Journal volume and issue number

For Books and Book Chapters

Full publisher information (e.g., city of publication)
A book chapter citation should include both (a) the title of the whole book, and (b) the title of the specific chapter you are borrowing ideas from

Web-based, non-print resources

Add a web address when it is an exclusively web-based resource (e.g., YouTube video clip).

An example of a citation of a journal article:

In the below image, the first (wrong) one is a Google Scholar citation copy and pasted without any revision. The second (correct) one is still a Google Scholar citation, but I added missing information by doing an additional search. This example is meant to show that you MAY use Google Scholar or another citation generator, BUT more often than not, you need to ADD to or EDIT your citation generator result to have a complete citation.
Google Scholar image showing a manufactured incorrect citation and the edits needed to correct it

Resources for Research and Citations

The purpose of this section is to introduce you to scholastic research and proper APA citation. You will be expected to know how to find academic papers and correctly cite them over the span of this course. Links provided below are example tutorials for your reference. Please go through this material now to familiarize yourself with the content.

Video Guides to APA Citation (begins at 4:10):

Click here for transcript of the Video Guides to APA Citation video.

Learn APA format using Microsoft Word in only four minutes. I recommend watching this in full screen mode begin with a blank Word document then set a consistent font such as Times New Roman and size such as 12. Then set the paragraph to double-spaced with no indent and remove the additional spacing that Microsoft Word adds by default. To add you're running hand double-click at the top of the page to enter the header area and select different first page. The other pages will have a different heading than this one. Now type the words running head followed by a colon and then the title of your paper all in uppercase. Then tab to the right margin and we'll insert a page number. Select insert page number current location and in plain text double click in the page to leave the header. The title page information is to be centered in the upper half of the page so space down three or four times and then select home and center the text. Now type the title of your paper in title case followed by your name and your institution. Your instructor may require additional information but this is the minimum APA requirement. Now insert a page break and we'll begin writing your content. Insert page break. Now on the second page, we'll click in the header area and add the next running head. The running head on all pages except for the title page has only your title all in uppercase and then tab to the right margin and insert a page number again. That's insert page number current location and as a plain number. Double-click in the page body to leave the header area. Large research papers may include an abstract page following a title page. It summarizes the research in a single paragraph. For our purposes we will omit the abstract page and continue to the content. The first line of your content will always be the title of your paper. Following that select home and left align so that your paragraphs will begin on the left margin. I recommend using the tab key to indent the first line of each paragraph to avoid centering problems. If using the paragraph setting of first line to indent. The centered text will be offset to the right by the indent. At the end of your content, insert a page break and we'll add the references page. Insert a page break in the references section. The word references is centered at the top of the page so select, home centered, and type the word references. Then press ENTER and left align so that your paragraphs will be on the Left margin. Select paragraphs and an indent of hanging so that the first line will be on the Left margin and all subsequent lines will be indented, which is the APA requirement for references. The following steps are how we did it. You may pause the playback and screen print or copy them down. You have now learned to make APA documents using word in only four minutes. If this helps you feel free to share with others.

Credit: Colin Murphy, Ed.D. "APA Format in Word 2016 In 4 Minutes." YouTube. May 4, 2017.

Click here for transcript of the Introduction to Citation Styles: APA 7th ed. video.

Citation styles are guidelines and conventions that different disciplines follow to present writing and sources in a consistent way. APA style from the American Psychological Association is a common citation style used in the sciences and social sciences.

There are two main components of a citation. First, when you reference another source include an
in-text citation in the body of your paper. In APA style, this citation includes the author's last name or organization comma and the year in parentheses. If there are more than three authors, include the first author's last name, then use the abbreviation et al., which means and others.

Then, include a complete citation in the reference list at the end of your paper. Your in-text and reference list citations should match. A reference list citation typically includes the author, the date, the title of the work, and the source, or information about where you can get it including any URLs or other links. Each part is separated with a period. In the reference list, use a hanging indent and organize your references alphabetically by author's last name. This helps your readers skim through the list to find the reference for an in-text citation. Reference list citations vary based on the type of source you're citing and the information available. Use the official style manual or an online citation guide to check which details about the source you should include. Let's take a look at one example.

In college, you'll probably be citing a lot of academic journal articles. First, include the last names and initials of the authors. Use the ampersand sign for "and" before the last author, then include the year the article is published in parentheses. Next, include the title of the article in sentence case. This means only the first word of the title and subtitle and any proper nouns are capitalized. After that include the academic journal where the article was published, in italics. Academic journals published collections of articles throughout the year. A journal might have a volume for each year and publish a new issue every few months. Separate the journal and the volume with a comma and italicize the volume number too. If there is an issue number, include that in parentheses and add the page range. Finally include the DOI, or digital object identifier, if it's available. This is a direct link to the article on the publisher's site.

Formatting citations and your paper can require some attention to detail. If you're not sure how to cite a source using APA style, ask a librarian!

Credit: Introduction to Citation Styles: APA 7th ed., University Library at CSU Dominguez Hills, 29 Oct 2019, Created by Tessa Withorn. CC by NC SA 2.0.

Video Guides to Scholastic Research:

Click here for transcript of the Google Scholar: The Basics video.

You're probably familiar with Google as a tool for finding information. Google crawls through pretty much the entire free Internet, searching for what you're looking for, and since it's searching for so many things, that means in that big pile of stuff, you may find some sources written for academic publication by experts in the field. Things we call scholarly. Especially if you look for them by name, but you might also find a lot of resources that are much less worthwhile. To use all the power of Google, while limiting your results to the scholarly resources, we have Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a free web resource that allows users to search for a variety of scholarly sources, including journal articles, citations, theses, and other content from academic publishers. This allows you to focus your search, weeding out a bulk of less reliable information. In fact, certain Google searches will automatically bring up Scholar results, and further results can be found by clicking on "Scholarly articles for," which will be above those results. But if you're looking for reliable information, especially these scholarly resources, it's best to just start in Google Scholar itself. If you're not on a Penn State computer, it's a good idea to click on settings, on the top right, then "Library links" on the left. Search for "Pennsylvania" in the search box, then select Pennsylvania State University Get It @ Penn State, and save. This links Scholar to Penn State University Libraries so that you can find the full text of any article you search for by clicking on the Get It button. As when searching for any scholarly content, Google Scholar tends to give you the best results when your keywords are focused. As you can see, if I search Google Scholar for the broad concept "transgender," my results vary greatly in subject. But focusing my search on something like "health care," greatly streamlines my results. If I do this same search in Google alone, insurance companies and other less reliable sources creep into my results. So Google Scholar is the better option here. To read an article, I simply click on the title or click on "Get It @ Penn State." Occasionally, results will be unlinked citations. These can be found using the library's other resources. Feel free to use "Ask a Librarian" on the Library's homepage for assistance with your search or locating articles on Google Scholar that you're having trouble finding. Good luck!

Credit: Credit: Penn State Libraries. "Google Scholar: The Basics." YouTube. December 19, 2013. [4]

How to use the Penn State CAT Search [5]

Helpful Hint:

If you are not familiar with the Penn State University Libraries website [6], I strongly encourage you to explore this extremely valuable website to learn about other research resources available to you as a student. The Penn State University Libraries website offers additional resources, in addition to citation help, under their 'How To' section. Refer to this page for more information on citations, scholastic research skills, and tutorials.

How to Succeed in GEOG 430

Keep these tips in mind when preparing to be successful in an online course:

Treat online learning as you would a face-to-face class

You should devote at least the same amount of time to your online courses as you would to attending lectures on campus and completing assignments. Other good study habits, such as attending class (logging on) regularly and taking notes, are as important in an online course as in a lecture hall.

Intentionally schedule your time

You should devote 10-12 hours weekly to completing lesson readings and assignments. Your learning will be most effective when you engage with the course daily.

Engage, Engage, Engage

Take every opportunity to interact with the content, the instructor, and your classmates by completing assignments and participating in discussion forums and group activities!

Be organized and keep up

Keep in sync with what is happening in the course and stay on top of deadlines and upcoming assignments. If you fall behind, it can be difficult to catch up.

Ask for help

Ask for guidance when needed. Email the instructor directly through Canvas.

Other Resources

The links below will connect you with other resources to help support your successful online learning experience:

Tips for Being a Successful World Campus Student [7]

This website links to many resources on everything from taking notes online to managing your time effectively. Please note that you must be a World Campus student to receive some of the support services mentioned on this website.
Penn State World Campus Technology Resources [8]

This website provides resources to help you learn to use technology, access Penn State tools, and purchase and download software.
Penn State World Campus Blog [9]

This blog features posts by Penn State staff and students on a variety of topics relevant to online learning. Learn from online students, alumni, and staff members about how you can get the most out of your online course experience.
Penn State iStudy for Success! [10]

The iStudy online learning tutorials are free and available to all Penn State students. They cover a broad range of topics including online learning readiness, time management, stress management, and statistics - among many others. Check out the extensive list of topics for yourself to see what topics may be of most use to you!
LinkedIn Learning at Penn State [11]

This website provides access to an extensive free online training library, with tutorials on everything from creating presentations to using mobile apps for education. There is a wealth of information here - all provided free of charge to Penn State faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students.

Week 1 Summary and Tasks

Summary

We’ll begin this semester with the first chapter from one of the leading Human-Environment Geography textbooks. This chapter is meant to make sure we are all on the same page. It offers a great introduction to some of the major themes we will encounter during the semester and will help you to understand what Human-Environment Geography is and how it might relate to some of the more specific issues we talk about in this course.

Tasks for this week:

Complete the online material for Lesson 1 (You have reached the end of the mateiral for Lesson 1, please see Canvas for the reading and assignments).
Please check the Lesson 1 Overview for a full list of tasks.

Please refer to the Calendar in Canvas for specific time frames and due dates.

Feel free to start reading matierial in Lesson 2 in order to get a head start for next week....