The entire website for this course constitutes the official syllabus for the course that faculty are supposed to provide students with within the first week of class.

2020 COVID-19 Pandemic Plan:

SAS004 is ON and ONLINE for fall quarter 2020!

This is NOT a sudden, poorly designed port of an in-person class to remote learning(!). Instead, this course has been thoughtfully designed for online, active learning through years of progression in this direction.

• Weekly lectures: already available as asynchronous video podcasts available both here on this website through the syllabus link and (with transcripts) at the UC Davis Aggie Video website.
• Film screenings: instead of doing them in person in a large classroom, they will be done synchronously using Zoom.
  • Normally, film DVDs are available for check-out from the UCD Shields library reserves desk for asynchronous watching for those local if they miss Zoom screenings. However, that servcie is closed for Fall 2020. Sorry.
  • If you want to watch a film on your own and you cannot access the UCD Reserves Desk, there are websites such as JustWatch that search multiple services to find a particular movie. Then you can decide if you subscribe to that servcie or if you wish to pay a fee to rent or buy each film. 
• Discussion sections: These will be held online using the Zoom "breakout room" feature.
• All assignments will be turned in through Canvas
• Final Exam: All undergrad classes at UCD are required to have a final exam. For fall 2020 UCD has given individual faculty the authority to decide whether to have one, and if so, how to do it. I have decided that there wil NOT be a final exam for fall 2020, because of all the concerns and problems that arise. Instead, what i have done is added one extra question to each week's movie log assignment that asks students to provide their viewpoint on how each week's topic spans the course theme of water and popular culture. In this way, students are assessed for their understanding of the main theme of the course without a "high-stakes" final exam under pandemic (and wildfire) conditions.
• Professor and TA office hours will be done using Zoom, with other communications via email and Canvas.
• UCD Student Resources and HELP FAQ- need help?,,, check out this website with access to many resources.

Zoom Privacy Matters

• During pandemic-forced remote learning, Monday discussions and Wednesday film screenings will take place on Zoom.
• We will NOT be recording Zoom sessions. Zoom will be used for interactive learning and film screening, so the focus is on your engagement.
• You are NOT required turn on your video in SAS004. For discussion, it helps and is preferable, but it is more important for people to be comfortable. Audio is enough for good conversation.
• Please use your real name in Zoom to identify yourself to the insuctor and classsmates.
• Respect for privacy is an essential part of our classroom community. Images, text, screenshots, audio/video content from Zoom sessions may only be used for instructional purposes of this course. Participants should not distribute data captured from Zoom sessions to anyone outside the course, without appropriate consent from the individuals whose images/voice/data are involved. Unauthorized distribution or capture outside the course may violate federal or state privacy laws or University of California policies. This means, for instance, you should not post screenshots of your class, your instructor, or your classmates to social media.
• Recording is only permitted by the instructor, by Letter of Accommodation issued by the Student Disability Center, or with instructor approval. If recording, the instructor will provide advance notice to participants of an intent to record a session, with an opportunity for students to petition theinstructorsforanopt-outofvideo/audioparticipation. Opt-outrequestswillbegrantedatthe discretion of the instructor or a campus-designated office, only if the students demonstrate a reasonable basis for declining video or other participation.
• Students should not save or record classroom chat exchanges, including photographing, screen capture, or privately saving chat exchanges, without explicit instructor permission.
• Emergency arrangements policy. If you suddenly need to turn off your video/audio, your video/audio access is suddenly interrupted, or you cannot log into a class, notify the instructor immediately send a canvas message to the professor and TA. Canvas will send a notification to them.

Instructor:

Professor Greg Pasternack, Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources

Course Description:

Formal: Importance of water in many aspects of society as revealed through a survey of its depictions in film.

Informal: This class is about a student's individual quest to find meaning in life through illumination about our own nature, how societies create meaningful events that influence people, and the role of nature, best exemplified by water, in forming the milieu within which people strive, struggle, achieve, or fail.

Student Learning Objectives:

1. Explain the importance of water in modern American society, considering such focal issues as water scarcity, flood risk, and water quality.
2. Explain the importance of water in world civilization, considering such issues as global climate change, environmental stewardship, international water conflicts, and water development in economically poor nations.
3. Recognize manifestations of individual psychology and lifestyle culture in the way people (and societies) interact with each other when coping with diverse societal issues related to natural resources.
4. Deconstruct the elements of a movie or tv show involving both character development and scientific ideas, analyze them, and present them thoughtfully to other people using written and oral communication.

Textbook:

There is no textbook for this course, but there are a variety of readings drawn from different sources. A complete list of the readings with guidance on how to obtain each reading and when to read them can be found on the SAS004 readings web page.

---

SAS004 Introductory Videos

Below are two videos that help motivate and introduce the course. By design, they are a bit mysterious. Throughout the quarter you might want to come back to these videos and see if they make more sense as we move along the trajectory of the course content.

"Illumination about our own nature"

Watch the 8.5-minute video below to see a mash up of clips from various tv shows and movies that help motivate what the course is about.  The video will not tell you directly what the course is about, but is the first step to gaining insights about Water in Popular Culture. While you watch the video and afterwards, think about what you think it all means.

Note that the video clips used in this short video are all short enough to meet the fair use criteria for educational use of internet and video content.  The clip from Heroes and the one clip from Grizzly Man with the Discovery Channel logo came from YouTube, while the remaining clips came from Netflix.

If the streaming video player below does not work for you, then you can download the video to your computer and watch it thereafter by clicking on one of the links below.  If you can watch it streaming, then you do not have to download a video file at all.

• 640 x 480 (480p) format that balances speed and quality. (158 MB file)
• 1920 x 1280 (HD) format that provides larges size and best quality. (1.23 GB file)

What Is This Course About?

Watch the 13-minute video below to see Professor Pasternack's presentation about what SAS004 is about in relation to the video montage on the SAS004 homepage.

If the streaming video player below does not work for you, then you can download the video to your computer and watch it thereafter by clicking on one of the links below.  If you can watch it streaming, then you do not have to download a video file at all.

• 640 x 480 (480p) format that balances speed and quality. (255 MB file)

---

Copyright Greg Pasternack 2005.

All federal and state copyrights reserved for all original material presented in this course through any medium, including lecture or print. Individuals are prohibited from being paid for taking, selling, or otherwise transferring for value, personal class notes made during this course to any entity without the express written permission of Greg Pasternack. In addition to legal sanctions, students found in violation of these prohibitions may be subject to University disciplinary action.