Natural History of the Appalachians and History of its National Parks and National Forests

Objectives

1. Learn about the natural history of the Appalachians.
2. Learn about the process of creating national forests and national parks in the Appalachian Region.
3. Spend a weekend at Mountain Lake Biological Station exploring a Wilderness Area of the Jefferson National Forest and learning natural history in the field. Date to be determined.
4. Practical experience in reading naturalists’ journals, scientific literature, and secondary sources on the process of creating and managing public lands.
5. Practice in critical writing and group discussions of complex topics.

Meetings Tuesdays 1:30-3:00  Gilmer 227

Henry Wilbur’s Office Gilmer 081 Hours by appointment, please email hmw3q@virginia.edu

Week 1.   26 Aug Habitats and organisms of the Appalachians

Week 2.     2 Sep The Archeological record of First Peoples

Week 3.     9 Sep Explorer-Naturalists

Week 4.   16 Sep Long hunters and traders

Week 5.   23 Sep Mountain farmers

Week 6.   30 Sep Railroads and commercial logging

Week 7.     7 Oct  Iron and coal

Week 8.   14 Oct  Fall Break 

Week 9.   21 Oct  Missionaries, tourists, and the myth of the hillbillies

Week 10. 28 Oct  Progressives: T. Roosevelt, Pinchot, Leopold, Hornaday

Week 11.   4 Nov The US Forest Service

Week 12. 11 Nov The Shenandoah National Park

Week 13. 18 Nov The Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Week 14. 25 Nov  Reintroductions: wolves and elk in GSMNP

Week 15.   2 Dec  Managing overabundance and invasives

Grading: Performance will be evaluated with a subjective score for class participation (20%) and grades on writing assignments (80%) as assigned below.

Writing: The course may be used to satisfy the college’s writing requirement. All students will write two papers (25% each) on their “resource topic” and three short essays (10% each) that prepare them for “other” weeks.

Readings:

The semester has three components; each has a set of resources that students will use to become “local experts” for class discussion. Selected chapters in the required text and following books will be supplemented by journal articles where appropriate.

Natural History:

Each student will learn about one habitat and one organism that we will see during the weekend field trip.

Maurice Brooks. 1965. The Appalachians

Scott Weidensaul 1996 Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians

Thomas P. Slaughter. 1996. The Natures of John and William Bartram.

William J. McShea, H. Brian Underwood and John H. Rappole. 1997. The Science of Overabundance: Deer Ecology and Management.

Mary Byrd Davis. 1996. Eastern Old-Growth Forests: Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery.

Cultural History

Donald Edward Davis 2000 Where There are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians. Required text

Roy B. Clarkson. 1964. Tumult on the Mountains: Lumbering in West Virginia 1770-1920.

Heather A. Lapham. 2005. Hunting for Hides: Deerskins, Status, and Cultural Change in the Protohistoric Appalachians.

Ronald D. Eller. 1982. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930.

Durwood Dunn. 1988. Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community 1818-1937.

Conservation and Preservation:

Susan L. Flader. 1974. Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude towards Deer, Wolves, and Forests.

Christopher Johnson and David Govatski. 2013. Forests for the People: The Story of America’s Eastern National Forests.

Gifford Pinchot. 1947. Breaking New Ground.

Stefan Bechtal. 2012. Mr. Hornaday’s War.

Objectives

1. Learn about the natural history of the Appalachians.
2. Learn about the process of creating national forests and national parks in the Appalachian Region.
3. Spend a weekend at Mountain Lake Biological Station exploring a Wilderness Area of the Jefferson National Forest and learning natural history in the field. Date to be determined.
4. Practical experience in reading naturalists’ journals, scientific literature, and secondary sources on the process of creating and managing public lands.
5. Practice in critical writing and group discussions of complex topics.