GEOG106

Description

The course offers a historical and contemporary exploration of the social relationships between our city-region and its water (as lifeline, right, cultural and ecological resource, economic engine, waste, and central to politics, regulation, management and future climate vulnerability and resilience). We draw widely from the academic literature on urban nature, urban development and change, planning, environmental justice, and climate and environmental history, as well as from popular literature and periodicals (newspapers, regional watershed-related blogs and websites, policy briefs). This scholarship is used to establish a foundational framework of urban socio-hydrology. We strongly integrate our academic work with field experiences in Worcester, the Blackstone River Valley and the Central New England region as a living laboratory, in order to witness key moments and features that have shaped regional history as well as current issues in water (and wastewater) management, conservation, and planning. We will undertake visits to sites such as the Clark campus rain garden and public parks and locations throughout Worcester, the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester Historical Museum, the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park and the Millville Lock, regional watershed associations, the Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary, The Harvard Forest Fisher Museum and the City of Worcester Water Treatment Plant. These experiences of regional land use, watershed change and urban water management will be threaded through and complement our academic investigation of urban socio-hydrology. A field trip fee is charged to students at time of registration to cover administrative and transportation costs.