Instructor: Professor Mark Griffin Smith, 103 Palmer Hall, Telephone: Ext. 6411

Class Hours: 9:00 - 11:30 Monday – Friday & required field trips as noted in the
syllabus.

Office Hours: Immediately after class everyday and by appointment.

Course Texts:
 
            Required:
 
                            Outwater, Alice. Water: A Natural History. New York: HarperCollins,
                            1996. (O on course outline)
 
                            Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its
                            Disappearing Water. New York: Penguin, 1986. (R on course outline)

            Handouts:
                            As distributed.

Synopsis: This course will survey the fundamentals of water resources management by examining current water resources problems. As an introductory course in economics, the class aims to demonstrate the value of economic analysis in the context of other approaches for analyzing water resource issues.
 

Percentage Assignment of Grade

(1) Final Exam 40%

(2) Final Project 40%

(3) Website Presentation 5%

(4) Hydrologic Observation Exercise 5%

(4) Class Participation (including hydrologic observation exercise) 10%

Exam: The exam will be a one and a half in-class exam on January 19. It will be closed note and closed book. However, a one page "cheat sheet" may be used during the exam. The exam will cover material from my lectures, all field trips and the required readings.

Class Project: You will be asked to make a presentation on, Thursday, January 20 on a topic related to water resources mutually agreed upon by the instructor and members of your group. The objective of these presentations is to teach your classmates something about a water resources topic that we have not already covered in class. The topics for these presentations can range from a particular project such as the Three Gorges Project in China or the Two-Forks Project in Colorado, a problem such as streamflow depletions due to snow-making or acid-mine drainage or a topic such as snow hydrology or dam construction. The main point is that we all learn something from your presentation.

Your grade for this presentation will be based upon the substance of the presentation, the quality of your individual presentation and the coherence of the group presentation. Presentations must be no longer than 20 minutes. Groups can be no larger than four students and no smaller than two students. You must turn in an annotated bibliography on the last day of class.

All groups must meet with me after class on the first Wednesday to discuss their project.

Web Site Presentations: The World Wide Web is becoming an increasing important source of information. To encourage you to explore the Web and critically evaluate the information you find, each of you will be asked to find a web site focusing on water resources issues and to make a brief presentation to the class describing the information/data available from this site. Presentations should be no longer than 2 minutes. Please bring several copies of the homepage (including the site’s web address) to class. In addition, please note any particularly helpful "links" you may have found while searching, i.e. sites that may not be interesting in themselves, but that identify and have links to, other useful sites.

Class Participation: Each course at C.C. is expensive and there are relatively few in your four years of undergraduate education. It is important that you participate fully and enthusiastically in the activities of the course if you are to receive your full measure of value from it. It is equally important to others in the course that you share your opinions, respect theirs, attend field trips as well as other class activities, and otherwise assist in this "team" learning experience, which can be an important element of the class. A portion of your grade will be based upon the instructor's evaluation of your enthusiasm and participation.

Grading Policy: I use the following method in determining your final grade. First, I add up all points for all assignments for all students in the course. Once I know the high score, I calculate the difference between this score and a score of 95%. I then add this amount to every student's final point total and assignment grades according to the scale below:

A : 93-100   C+: 77-79

A-: 90-92    C : 73-76

B+: 87-89   C-: 70-72

B : 83-86     D+: 67-69

B-: 80-82     D: 63-66

NC: <63

Clearly using this grading system there is always at least one A in the course, sometimes only one, but sometimes many A's. If the highest score in the class exceeds 95% of total points, no points are added to your final scores.