Syllabi: Graduate Courses

A syllabus deals with an entire course. Graduate courses in ethnobiology require advanced preparation in a variety of subjects.

University of Hawai`i at Manoa

Web Link: Quantitative Ethnobotany (Botany 640)

Modern ethnobotanical field research project design, execution, data analysis, and documentation methods. Intended for students preparing to conduct field research studies.

Quantitative Ethnobotany is intended to provide students (mainly graduate students) with knowledge of the current field methods used in studies of cultural uses of plants. There are far too many techniques that are used in this branch of science to cover in a single semester. As a result, the strategy of this course is to develop strategies and habits that encourage the self-discover and mastery of appropriate techniques.

The course activities involve learning about the methods through practical exercises, critical examinations of recent literature and writing comprehensive guides to specific methods. Quantitative methods which produce reproducible results will be emphasized. Traditional qualitative methods will be described and discussed as they are useful in initial ethnobotanical studies.

The ethics of research practice and application of research results will be emphasized throughout the course. Special attention will be given to the presentation of research results in ways that are appropriate to professional practices.

See this link for an alternative syllabus for this course.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison

Web Link: Ethnobotany

Ethnobotany is the study of the interactions between human cultures and plants. As such it is an extremely broad field that crosses disciplinary boundaries. It includes economic botany, the study of the human uses of plants in all aspects of material culture. However, ethnobotany also includes aspects that do not involve the practical uses of plants, such as linguistic/cognitive studies of how plants are perceived, named, and classified in various cultures, or studies of the history of human impacts on the environment. The course is intended as a broad survey of the kinds of plant-human interactions that are studied by ethnobotanists, and is aimed at upper-level undergraduates and early graduate students. The following assignments are highlighted in the syllabus link above.

Article critiques – Students are given a set of articles on a particular theme, and they must select one to answer a series of guided reading questions about.
Crop domestication assignment – Students learn about crop domestication through examples comparing crop traits with traits of their wild relatives.
Sunflower debate – Students are divided into two teams to debate the origin of the domesticated sunflower – Mexico or eastern North America.
Class guided greenhouse tour – Each student is assigned an ethnobotanically significant plant to research and then present during a visit to the greenhouse.
Foods as medicines – Students use popular and academic sources to answer questions about a food or food component with controversial health claims.
Term project – Students work in groups to research, write, and present about an ethnobotanical topic of their interest. They may also conduct primary research

OSN Review