NarratingLandscapes Project

From NarratingLandscapes

This project was made possible with a generous grant from the University of British Columbia Arts IT Teaching Innovation grant in 2006. User:DylanGordon, an alumnus of the anthropology department at UBC, has been integral to designing and carrying out the project, as have all the students of Ethnobotany 2006.

Below is the original vision for the project:

(1) Project title: Ethnobotany in Place: A Local Knowledge Interactive Teaching Website

Description: This project will develop an interactive (php) teaching website as part of Dr Wyndham’s ethnobotany course in Fall 2006 and subsequent years. The website will host results from students’ research into UBC campus ethnobotany—including photos, plant uses, audio interviews, and video clips. Ethnobotany is the study of how people use and relate to plants; this project will bring the remarkable richness of UBC campus and the endowment lands into focus by using place-centered learning that is managed by students themselves. Making students’ research public will help foster a culture of engaged learning and rigorous scholarship, as well as their sense of making a contribution that helps build a multigenerational project, with each subsequent class cohort adding to and improving the site. The project will also allow students to engage with the substantive issues of ethnobiological research, including basic data collection and representation as well as ethics and intellectual property issues . Students will be able to upload elements of their assignments, for example, a report on the cultural, social and material importance of a plant species or genus found on UBC campus, or an anthropological perspective on the meaning and uses of local plants. There will be space for comments and feedback at each entry. Other students and the general public will potentially be engaged in the project as well, as they will have access to view the site if they wish to learn more about the plant-human landscape of UBC. Our primary focus will be on contemporary perceptions and uses of the campus as an edible, medicinal, aesthetic and human-ecological landscape from multi-cultural perspectives (Euro- and Asian-Canadian, First Nations, and others as pertinent). The site will function internally as a multi-media database with an emphasis on the cultural and social significance of plants on campus. For the viewer, it will look like a guided tour, the structure of which will be discussed in collaboration with students this Fall (it could be organized by seasonal round, or eco-geographically, or alphabetically, or other). The site will be designed so that it may grow organically as needed; for example, other related courses in other departments across campus may contribute in the future. We are exploring collaboration possibilities with Musqueam Ecosystem Conservation NGO and ethnobotany research projects at Musqueam as well. The database will potentially promote technology education among members of the local community and hopefully contribute to strengthening community-university relations. Dr Wyndham is involved in the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) teaching resources initiative. The web module that results from this project will be made available on the website she manages for the ISE (www.ethnobiology.net), so that other teachers will be able to use this teaching tool.

(2) Purpose, rationale and goals • The project will contribute to UBC and Arts goals outlined in the Trek 2010 document and the Faculty of Arts Academic Plan, including learner-centered instruction; interactive instruction, linking research and teaching; promoting interdisciplinarity and internationalization (the teaching tool will be disseminated internationally via the International Society of Ethnobiology). • The project will enable instructors and students to use new learning technologies • The project will enhance the development of software for teaching purposes. This includes both technology-based teaching materials as well as learning through the process of research and contributing to a larger project. • The project will entail an evaluative component, contributing to the expansion of our knowledge about the effectiveness of using new learning technologies (see below for details). • The project will connect a community of learners, UBC based and the general public. Ideally it will connect: a) Various UBC departments (eg. botany, history, geography, anthropology, sociology, as well as UBC botanical gardens) b) Students and instructors in an online environment, and through time, as it is expected to be used by different generations of students and professors. c) University and local communities. • The project will contribute to generating a sense of pride and responsibility among the participants as the information gathered and organized will be part of the public domain.

Implementation The project will be implemented in Ethnobotany classes taught by Felice Wyndham (undergraduate students and graduate students). We will create an interactive website/database by modifying existing software (particularly modifying it to accommodate more anthropological materials and to work as a teaching tool). We will incorporate interactive sections that include still and/or moving images of UBC plants, cultural uses and significant interviews, researched by the students. Students will: a) Participate in designing the general structure of the database b) Have the opportunity to learn to use the digital cameras, video cameras and recorders. (though this will not be required) c) Learn about social and cultural significances of local plants and campus spaces through this collection. d) Upload and edit the growing online database

Evaluation: We will incorporate a feedback section on the website that minimally, students will contribute to, and hopefully the general public will contribute to. We will answer the following questions in a final evaluation (and address them for the improved version in future years): a) Is the level of technological ability easy enough that all students can benefit from this teaching tool? b) Are students enthusiastic with the project initially? How does engagement with the project evolve during the implementation? c) Is the database helping students in learning the objectives, methodology and main concepts of ethnobotany? d) Are the students getting a research experience close to the professional practice of ethnobiology? e) Can students detect problems in relation to the database construction and do they try to solve them independently? f) Is peer to peer teaching effective? Do the more experienced students contribute to un-experienced students development of the necessary skills to manage the database? g) Does the database building contribute to better interactions between students and the professor? h) Does the project contribute primarily to intellectual goals?

(3) Faculty involvement

- Dr. Felice Wyndham is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her research focuses on historical ecology and children’s ecological knowledge and learning in Rarámuri communities in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico. She will manage the project, providing guidance to the MA student coordinators and undergraduate participants. - Other faculty will be invited to contribute in the future (at UBC and internationally via Dr Wyndham’s network of ethnobiology educators)

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