GARY WAGENBACH

Winifred and Atherton Bean Professor of Biology, Science, Technology, and Society and Director of Environmental and Technology Studies

Course Title : Aquatic Biology (Biology 253)

Course Description :
A detailed investigation of aquatic organisms, both plan and animal, in relation to their physical, chemical and biological environment. Lake, river, and marsh will be studied as independent and interdependent systems, with the effects on people's use and manipulation investigated where appropriate. The latter part of the course will deal with analysis and evaluation of current hypotheses on population growth, fluctuation and distribution on field data collected in the laboratory. Sampling techniques and data analysis are the main focus of the laboratory.

Service-learning Project Description:
Students interviewed citizens about water quality and performed longitudinal participatory action research on two lakes in the county. Class discussions were consequently based on the concerns which residents raised about the quality of water in the lakes. At the end of the term, there was a public symposium in which students presented their findings. The audience consisted of people from the Lake Associations, the residents who were interviewed and their family and friends.

FEEDBACK ON CIVIC ENGAGEMENT APPROACH

The clients/community partners:

"I think the community partners were grateful that someone appreciated their concerns." It also gave them an opportunity to approach old questions from a new perspective. The students were able to introduce the residents to new content/information which they may not have known or not have known in detail in the past. For example, most of the residents brought up very complicated questions to which there were no easy answers. However, the approach which Wagenbach and his class used was to take parts of the questions and address them individually. By doing this, the residents were able to have a more detailed and complete understanding of why particular problems exist (for example, why is there green algae in the water?).

Additionally, by helping residents to see that their questions were complex ones, they would be able to make more informed decisions. They could make better decisions about management practices and what type of treatments they should invest in.

Citizens enjoyed being part of the project because they enjoyed hanging out with students, and students also enjoyed hanging out with residents. "After all, they are real people" he stated.

Professor-student relationship:
Professor Wagenbach described the relationship he had with students as a "collaborative model". Students identified questions which they wanted to address and as a professor he was able to "help them to move towards their goal". "Instead of it being a top-down model of teaching, it was more of a circular type relationship. I helped students to shape the questions which they were interested in." He served as an "adviser".

"I think it was an effective position," Wagenbach said. It was an investigator-client relationship.

Evaluation of students' academic performance:
A public symposium was the main forum through which students presented their findings. Professor Wagenbach described the Public Symposium as being a "wonderful moment". He was very pleased that after the symposium, visitors stayed around and engaged in conversations with the students. He stated, "it's a nice challenge for students to understand work well enough to be able to present it to their clients." The symposium allowed Wagenbach to test students' understanding of the basic concepts of Aquatic Biology, their ability to collect and analyze data, their writing abilities and their ability to give clear and unambiguous/good quality presentations. However, in addition to this, there were also class exams and required class participation/discussion to evaluate students' grasp of the key concepts. "It became a very useful framework because I could be in the middle; testing students understanding, seeing if they met the community's interests. For my agenda, it was a good vehicle."

Challenges:
"I think that one of the biggest challenges was finding citizens who were willing to engage in the project. I had to make an effort to contact citizens. It took a lot of planning." Wagenbach initially met with the Lake Association and described the ideas that he had for the project. They were very helpful in linking him up with the names of residents who might be interested in participating. He got a list of names and phone numbers, which he said, was a very good approach, and from there the students and the community members had to link up with each other. He highlighted that it is essential for both the residents and the students to understand the mission.

NARAN BILIK

Course Title: Ethnicity and Race (Sociology/Anthropology 272)

Course Description:
This course examines ethnic and racial relations from an anthropological perspective. We focus on such theories as primordialism, instrumentalism, myth-complex, and boundaries, exploring the intellectual history and of these theories. Readings include both theoretical articles and ethnographic case studies from around the world.

Project Description:
Students of interviewed people of Hmong and Latino heritage in St. Paul and Northfield respectively. The questions which they asked were guided by anthropological understanding of race. The questions covered 4 main areas: identity, memory (of history and culture), religion and action. Students collaborated with the Lao Family Community of Minnesota (in St. Paul), Humanity Helping Humanity (in Minneapolis) and more informally, with local Latino Northfield residents.

Benefit of including a civic engagement component in Ethnicity and Race:
We learn by both reading and practicing. This component has added an “ethnographic” edge to this class. Meanwhile, students also have more chance to get to know each other through organized “real-time” activities, and therefore will strengthen their sense of community and responsibility. What is more, students can apply theories that they have learned in class to reality. It is also a good platform from which instructors and students can better interact. They have learned a lot and found many social “problems” that they might have otherwise overlooked. They also better understood the debating points between different theoretic schools by scrutinizing the real life. It was easier for them to understand by including this component because anthropological theories come from fieldwork and from real life.

Evaluation of students:
Students wrote a short paper based on the information they found and they were also given the option to include this information, in their final papers.

Challenges:
One of the major challenges was dealing with scheduling and organization of the project. Students had to find a time when they could all meet, and when the community partner was available, in order to visit the organization in to St. Paul