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Interactions Among Driving Forces, Proximate Sources, and the Impacts of Land Use/Land Cover Change -- Student Worksheets

Student Worksheet 1.1
Activity 1.1 Taking Good Notes

As you work through the reading assignments for this course, do not just read the articles, or just underline important passages. For understanding and remembering the arguments, it is even more important to take notes on what you read. The primary purpose of taking notes is to produce a brief overview of a text to help your memory recall the larger story of which the notes speak.

Refer to the hand-out provided by your instructor on how to take good notes so you can follow and better understand the six steps of note taking listed below!

Steps in taking notes on your readings:

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Student Worksheet 1.2
Activity 1.2 Before You Lived Here...

Find out from your parents or grandparents when the house or apartment building in which you grew up was built. Or -- if you're far from home and find it difficult to acquire this information -- find out from your landlord when the building in which you live was constructed. (If you live in a dormitory, the college is your landlord.) Then find out how the land was used before the house or apartment building was constructed. What was the land cover then and what was it before that? You might also want to consult some older maps or check in archives if the house/apartment building is very old; your parents or grandparents might have photo albums, or the town planning office or the city's historical society might have additional interesting information.

Find as much as you can, trying to go back as far as possible (note that the variety of resources you use will in part determine your grade for this assignment), and then present your findings either orally in class or create a nice poster with graphics, maps, pictures and text -- whatever you found.

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Student Worksheet 1.3

Activity 1.3 Reading Land Use and Land Cover Maps

Using the maps provided by your instructor, list the most important land uses and land covers. You may want to refer back to the definitions of these terms that you either heard in class or found in the readings. If you have doubts, ask your neighbor for help.
 

Land Use

Land Cover
Alternatively, or in addition, look at the maps of Brazil provided by your instructor. Given the legend captions on each, which of the two is the land cover, and which the land use map? Refer to the definitions of land use and land cover if you have doubts.

Now assume that the land uses and covers shown on your map change (e.g., through a change in farmer's preferences what to grow, deforestation, urban spread and so on).

Discuss the following questions with your neighbor and then report to the class:

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Student Worksheet 1.4

Activity 1.4 Linking Regional Land Use/Cover and Global Change

In this activity you are to relate local to regional land use/cover changes to global human driving forces and understand the importance of land use/cover change in the context of global change research.

Write a short essay, describing the land use and land cover of a region of your choice (or continuing with the region you studied in Activity 1.3), in which you speculate (using the Background Information of Unit 1) how these regional land uses and land covers are connected to global environmental change. For example, what does deforestation of old growth forest have to do with global change? What are the causes, the macro/driving forces and the proximate sources of change? You should use information from text books, internet databases, maps and atlases, and other sources; just make sure to cite them appropriately.

Your instructor may allow you to write in a different genre than an essay. You may, for example, write about global LULC change and human driving forces in the form of a letter to a friend or family member, or you may decide to describe what you find in a particular region as if you wrote a travel report for a glossy magazine.

Be careful in making causal connections because they are often more complex than you might think at first glance. The main point for you to show, using your regional example, is why LULC is important in the study of the HDGC. Rely on some of the readings suggested by your instructor and use local or regional examples pertinent to the point you want to make.

Alternatively, the same issues can be discussed in small groups in class. In that case, you will get together in small groups of three or four and take on one of the following roles: discussion leader, reporter (taking notes on the main arguments), and process observer (making sure that everyone gets involved and has a chance to speak). Your instructor will be an external observer, facilitating your discussions if necessary.

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Last Revised: 2/18/00 Robert E. Ford rford@igc.org