Natural and human systems are becoming increasingly stressed due to changing and increasing demands on resources, climate variability, and in some cases, extreme events such as drought.  In many regions, climate change will further exacerbate stresses on these systems. Because scientific knowledge can be critical for dealing with these issues, a number of efforts are underway to provide information to assist management, planning, and policy making.  However, much science is ultimately not used to inform these actions because there is often a mismatch between the types and format of information available and what is useful for these potential consumers. Aside from this confounding incongruity, there is often a fundamental lack of two-way communication between scientists and decision makers. 

This seminar explores concepts at the intersection between environmental science and decision making, including scientific information supply and demand, boundary organizations, co-production of knowledge, and knowledge networks, as well as recognition of the political context for decision making. It also includes practical aspects of two-way communication to explore the ways in which exchanges take place between scientists and decision makers, who can include resource management professionals, planners, policy makers, NGOs, and the general public.  
 

The seminar will be structured around a set of weekly readings. Students will be responsible for reading, thinking about, and expressing their thoughts on the assigned weekly readings.  A class blog will be used to share comments, responses, and questions on each week’s reading assignments, guided by several overarching questions.  Each week, one half of the class will use the blog to make comments and one half will respond to their classmates comments.  The readings, blog discussion questions, blog comments and responses will form the basis for class discussions.  We will have a number of guest participants who have academic backgrounds in science/stakeholder interactions or practical experience in working with decision makers.  Students will have a chance to interact with decision-makers during one class in the middle of the semester, and again near the end, when a panel of people working as “information brokers” will discuss with the class the challenges and opportunities for working at the interface between science and decision making.

Assignments include:

• Weekly readings
• Blog comments and responses
• Synthesis paper that applies the concepts discussed in class to critique or evaluation of  a science/decision making effort
• Short presentation of some aspect of the synthesis paper in a general audience format 

Class Blog

In reading and understanding written materials, it is useful to spend some time thinking and writing about what has been read. For each week’s reading assignments, students are to write an entry on the class blog that considers, at least in part, the week's blog discussion questions. The class will be divided into blog commenters, and blog responders who can respond to any of the comments.  Questions are welcome as well. These blogs will be used to guide our discussions and address questions that have come up.  

• Blog commenters will be required to make their entries no later than midnight on the Thursday before class, so responders have time to consider the comments
• Blog responders will be required to write their responses no later than midnight Sunday, so we all have some time to read these before class.  
• The goal is not necessarily to summarize the readings, but to reflect on them and how they relate to the overarching questions, and comment on some aspect that interests you.
• Entries should take you no more than 30 minutes

Using the Class blog  

•  To login, use your UA net ID and password 
•  Instructions for creating, editing, and responding to entries are on the home page ("home") but you must login first to see the sample blog and video (login on right)
•  Click on Class Blog, Create new blog entry to make a new comment.  Cut and past (best from WordPad not from MS Word) or type in your entry.
• Click "Preview" to check what you've written
• Click "Save" to post your blog
• Click on "reply" to respond to a comment

An important part of the class is synthesizing the concepts discussed in the context of real world applications. In an effort to help students think about how (and what) foundational concepts take shape to create an effective interface between science and decision making, students will write a synthesis paper that documents this connection (or alternatively, how the concepts fail to result in successful interactions).  Each student will select a case study for their seminar paper that focuses on either: 1) a specific case in which scientific information has been incorporated into decision making, or 2) a comparison of several science/decision making interface efforts (e.g., the Cooperative Extension model versus an NGO’s work with stakeholders). The paper should include a review of the relevant literature, the main problem being addressed, a discussion on the extent to which the basic concepts studied in class are applied, a critique of the efforts undertaking (effectiveness, and how evaluated), and suggestions for more effective interactions. 

In addition to the paper, students will prepare a short (~10 minutes) oral presentation on some aspect of their paper for a non-academic audience that utilizes approaches for effective communication, as discussed in class.

 Due Dates:

• Topics for presentations are due September 19
• Short presentations on some aspect of your paper on November 28
• Final papers are due December 5