Many of us have been involved in discussions around grades for a particular student's paper . These sessions produce lively conversations about abstract notions such as "quality," as well as concrete judgements about the importance of grammar and punctuation. Sometimes an instructor will fail a paper that clearly does not deserve that grade or praise a paper that falls far short of the mark just to ensure a good debate or to claim status as the only person left on campus who upholds standards or the only one who truly has compassion for students who are trying hard. However, even dismissing these extreme responses, seldom do faculty agree on what grade a paper should receive.

Would we, the faculty of Keene State College, agree on the quality of a particular paper?

The Writing Task Force invites you to help us answer that question by participating in a campus-wide grading session. Please read the following paper, grade it, briefly explain your evaluation, and then mail your comments to us. We will share the results with the campus in our next Newsletter.

About a half million years ago (Dott & Batten, 1088 p.610), conditions in the ecosystem permitted humans to establish themselves as a species. There was a niche we could exploit and we did. Unfortunately for much of earth's life, as our numbers grew, so did our arrogance. Our unique communication skills allowed the sharing of knowledge in a synergistic process that expanded the ability to exploit our niche into the ability to exploit the entire ecosystem.

Early humans, the hunter-gatherers and the first agrarian societies, were intimately connected to the earth's natural processes. They understood on a gut level the importance of sun and rain, for example. Without them, these people died of thirst and starvation. For them, the link was clear and immediate. We have, in the last few thousand years, progressed to the point where this link to nature is totally invisible to much of our population. Water comes from faucets, food from stores.

This disconnection from our ecosystem is reinforced for many people by their belief, learned early in life, that "man" is the supreme life form and that everything else was put on earth for our use. This fits well with another belief that humans are at the top of the food chain, that we have no natural enemies. Once there were predators that humans feared. They were the big carnivores-tigers, lions, and bears. We overcame them with our brains which enabled us to invent weapons. Now, we are supreme. Or are we? What about the tiniest creatures, the viruses and bacteria that kill us every day? We are not really supreme. We are part of the system of life on this planet and we must live within the constraints of that system if we are to survive.

We have much to learn about these constraints, but we already know some important things. One is that species of plants and animals appear and disappear over geologic time, depending on how well suited to the existing environmental conditions they are. When conditions change and a species cannot tolerate the new ones, it becomes extinct. Many species are threatened with extinction now. Many have already been lost. Some of this would happen naturally, but the large number of threatened species appears to be caused mostly by human activity. Habitat destruction is one of our activities that kills a species. Like us, if they have no shelter or food, they perish.

Many humans, especially in Western society, do not have much understanding of the interdependence of life on this planet. This is a root cause of the continuing assault on the environment. If people understood that their own survival is connected to the species we are driving to extinction, the behavior that is doing the damage would start to change. In a greatly simplified overview, let me list some of the things other forms of life do that allow us to survive.

First, breathing. We take oxygen from the air to fuel our bodily processes. It is in the air because plants release it as a byproduct of their metabolism. If we lose too many plants, we will not have enough oxygen. Plants need soil with nutrients and water to grow. The nutrients are recycled by microorganisms that break down dead organic matter (Nebel, 1990, p. 165). Many of the chemicals we release into the environment kill the microorganisms. We cannot ordinarily see these creatures, but they are essential to our survival.

Our next most critical need is water. We take it for granted, but most of what we consume is polluted to some degree, and it is getting worse in most places. There are natural processes that clean the water, one of which is the filtration that happens when rainwater slowly works its way through a forest floor and down into the aquifer. On the other end, rivers flow into tidal flats where the water is slowly filtered through plants before going back into the ocean. These both depend on healthy plants to work.

Then there is our food, all of which comes from plants, either directly or indirectly. The bottom line is this, there is no supreme species. All are interdependent. Except perhaps us. Try to think of any species that would miss humans if they were to become extinct besides those we have trained to be dependent on us. We may be the only species the world would be better off without. If we are to thrive, we must understand that bacteria decomposing dead organic matter into nutrients for plants are just as important as we are. The famous Pogo quote, "We have met the enemy, and he is us," sums up the problem.

The damage humans are doing to the environment is a serious problem, made worse because many people do not understand how their actions hurt other life. The lack of understanding is largely due to our disconnection from nature, but this goes back to the line about water comes from faucets and food comes from stores.

There are many ways to eliminate this disconnection, but one that is often suggested is to put a box of dirt in the sun and to grow some of our own food rather than letting large corporations do it for us (Cunningham & Saigo, 1992, p. 214). This food both nourishes us and teaches us about how the environment works. We can learn early on that a praying mantis is not an ugly bug to be stepped on but rather a friend who can keep the vegetarian bugs from eating the entire crop. We can enjoy food that is not sprayed with chemical poisons. We can gain a whole new appreciation for rainy days, and the idea of acid rain may not seem so remote. In short, we can re-establish connections to the environment that our ancestors knew well. They depended on that environment for survival. We do, too.

References

Cunningham, W. P., & Saigo, B. W. (1992). Environmental Science: a global concern. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown.

Dott, R. H., Jr., & Batten, R. L. (1988). Evolution of the earth. New York: Macmillan.

Nebel, B. J. (1990). Environmental science: The way the world works. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

What grade would you assign this paper? (please circle one) A AB B BC C D F

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