Proposal for First-Year seminar 2006

Bottom dwellers in an ocean of air

Description

We live on the bottom of an ocean of a mix of gases and vapors which is kept in constant, chaotic motion by uneven heating and planetary rotation, thus evading our control. We, as humans, are often on the defense or in a role of passive adaptation with regard to weather. Are humans victims or actors on the stage of global atmospheric dynamics? How would your life be different, if you lived in a desert, or a place of daily torrential rains, or of 6-month darkness, or in an area prone to tropical storms? The class will explore these questions using discussions, readings, observation projects, lectures, design projects, and a semester-long project on recording personal weather experiences.

Proposal

In light of the recent very active weather-year, as well as increasing warning signs of human role in the global warming process, it has become apparent that we are much closer and much more dependent on the forces of climate and weather than we realize. Despite a wealth of technology and architecture protecting us from the immediate exposure, we are still (and may well stay) on the defense regarding the planetary forces.

I would like to explore in this class how humans in various cultures have adapted to their climate, and how their specific climate has shaped lifestyles, architecture, art, scientific progress, clothing, etc.

There will be several parts to this course:

- We will study some basic atmospheric physics, including air pressure, wind, humidity, precipitation, condensation, evaporation, ideal gas behavior.

- We will correlate this with the geographic climatic zones and the cultures in these locations.

- We will study which role the climate and weather plays in specific expressions of these cultures.

- We will study the engineering feats that have been undertaken to enable humans to survive in hostile climates.

- We will study in which way humans influence the weather, and discuss questions of urbanization, fossil fuels, global warming, deforestation…

Students will be given assignments of designing or researching housing/clothing/food sources/technology in climates that are not their own, and on examples on how human activity has influenced the weather. We will explore expressions of weather events in art in various geographic regions. A semester-long project will ask students to record weather-related events, including sketches of the sky, photographs, essays about the mood set by weather, reports describing weather events, weather data collections, list of weather-influenced events, weather maps and other forms of expression. The goal is to document a coordinated time-line of the many layers of atmospheric influence on our personal and communal life.

Sylke Boyd, sboyd@morris.umn.edu