Notes for Place

The most  obvious elements in everyday life may be the natural world we see and the people we encounter.

Our high desert landscape offers so many ways of interacting with it. The sports and activities we have here allow for anyone to have first hand experience with the canyons, sage flats, rivers, lakes and alpine terrain. Simply viewing these natural features is a first hand experience. This landscape is uplifting in many ways and recent studies find that nature itself is a healing element for people.

In this fragile, challenging environment, the native peoples have co-existed with the land and the wildlife for thousands of years, like this sagebrush sandals link shows. As modern inhabitants, we have much to learn from them about this land

There are many opportunities to investigate the history of European settlement, people who have created beautiful additions to this region and some who have made unfortunate changes.

For this thematic focus, Our Place, we will choose some aspect of this land to investigate andwrite about--even a mystery to research. 

This assignment will be about 750wds. and have 2-3 sources to support the thesis. The focus can be historical, scientific or some other aspect of modern day life in this region.

The first stage will be investigation and research to find a focus. Using the Topic Exploration page will help verify the topic and a shape for the paper.  We will cover the basics of research and documentation, and elements of correct language usage. 

These questions may help guide the focus:

• What can we learn from the history of our region?
• How can the public land be managed better?
  

The time frame for this project will allow for finding and learning about the topic and about the process of producing a documented, academic writing.  Presto. Fun.