NRES 130 Course: Great Plains Peoples and Land

Course Description

Course Description

The Great Plains encompass more than 600 million acres and have been occupied by humans for over 12,000 years. At such a vast spatial scale and broad time depth, the region offers considerable ecological and cultural diversity. The Objective of this course is to introduce you to the different populations who have called the Great Plains home, and how they have made a living on this landscape.  The first segment of the course will investigate Native American life ways in the Great Plains from the time of initial entry into the region up to European contact. The next segment will investigate the dramatic changes experienced during the historic era. In the final section of the course, I will draw on student suggestions to select topics centered on contemporary socio-ecological systems on the Plains. We will then discuss how our understanding of past Plains experiences can be used to inform on these contemporary issues. The foundational knowledge of the various peoples of the Great Plains, and their unique lifeways, provides a basis for more in-depth study in future courses. Specifically, NRES 289 (Peoples and the Land: Human Environmental Interactions on the Great Plains) builds off of the cultural survey offered in this course to explore specific case studies about the unique challenges (and opportunities) posed by the environmental/ecological conditions faced by plains populations at specific points in the past.

Learning Outcomes 

This course fulfills ACE Student Learning Outcome #5 Use knowledge, historical perspectives, analysis, interpretation, critical evaluation, and the standards of evidence appropriate to the humanities to address problems and issues.

After completing NRES 130, a student will be able to:

1.Utilize sources of evidence from a variety of different disciplines to address indigenous populations on the Great Plains, with special emphasis on past human environmental relationships, economies, technologies and how these have changed through time in relation to various internal and external stimuli.

2.Utilize sources of evidence from a variety of different disciplines to address European and American populations on the Great Plains with special emphasis on their perceptions of the Great Plains, their motivations for coming to and living in the region, their economies/lifeways and their interactions with Native American communities and the environment.

3.Identify and evaluate key factors of culture change in the prehistory/history of the Great Plains region with special emphasis on the role environmental and social forces played on this change.

4.Transfer knowledge of the Great Plains environment and history to the interpretation of Great Plains related materials and events outside of the classroom, and demonstrate their interpretations and analysis of these materials and events through written and oral communication.

Requirements

1.Students will conduct a life history assignment for an individual from the Great Plains. This project is designed for students to utilize their understanding of key themes in the human experience on the Great Plains to investigate the life history of an individual of their choosing. 

2.Students will prepare Power Point presentations about the life history projects they have completed. Presentations will outline their methodologies, a summary of their findings, and a key anecdote that they feel helps to portray their subject’s experiences and views of life on the Plains.

3.Students will complete five out-of-class writing assignments designed for student reflection on concepts generated from class, lecture, and course readings. These will be submitted for group discussion via Canvas. This aids in student attainment of content knowledge as well as building a supportive and encouraging online learning community.

4. Students will complete short-answer assignments related to weekly readings and Power Point Slides. The questions in these assignments will be centered on key concept and relationships concerning Plains cultural groups and their relationships to the Great Plains environment.