This is a more complete description of the non credit LCC Course, Global Trends-Local Choices

E mail me if you would like to be kept up with particulars of the course or if you would like to take this course but cannot afford the $79 [very reasonable] charged by LCC.

Instructor Jan Spencer
Home and work phone tel 686 6761
e mail spencerj@efn.org

Proposed Course Title "Global trends-Local Choices"
Course location most likely at LCC downtown. [check later for sure]

1] A brief Description [overview of the course and its relevance or usefulness]

The course will take a look at various contemporary environmental/cultural circumstances and
connect how our personal life style choices affect and are affected by those circumstances. Class
participants will be better able to understand what is taking place in the world around them and be
better prepared to make decisions in their own lives that will help improve their own health, the
environment and the larger community.

2] Required Text
A reading list will be provided. Class participants will be asked to keep a journal relating to the
class topics. Several times during the course a choice of topics will be offered to research in greater
detail and reports shared with the class, in effect participants being a part of the class's [and
instructor's] educational process and participants having a way to explore some of their own
interests. At the final session, we will organize together reports, clippings, comments.

3] Recommended or assigned reading
Web searches "external cost", Peak Oil, voluntary simplicity, global warming, water scarcity,
sprawl, suburbia and more.
New York Times on the web, Frequent articles relating to the course may be found daily
State of the World 2004, World Watch Institute, Washington DC This year's edition focuses on the
consumer society. Perfect for the course. Participants will be encouraged to buy this publication
Diet For a New America, John Robbins best seller describing the health, ethical and environmental
affects of a diet based on meat.
The Heat is On, Rob Gelbspan - a well researched book explaining global warming
The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg - a well researched book explaining Peak Oil
Your Money or Your Life, Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robbin - taking inventory of how we spend
our money as individuals. Smart management and voluntary simplicity can lead to independence
Gaia's Garden, Toby Henenway - Home scale Permaculture, design and create food, habitat, energy
systems for a healthier lifestyle and planet
Eco Cities, Richard Register - A thoughtful description of how and why our cities can have a
much better relationship with nature
Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach - A fiction story of the NW part of the United States splitting off and
forming a separate culture/nation based on ecological principles.

4] Equipment needed from LCC
Slide projector, overhead projector and VCR, DVD. Not necessarily all at the same time or for
each class.

5] Equipment, supplies cost to students
participants will be encouraged to buy State of the World, 2004 and keep a journal. Share cost to
make copies of the collective scrap book, less than $5 each.

6] Prerequisites or skills should students have before taking this class
No particular skills. An openness to possible unsettling info, self honesty a plus and curiosity to
explore cultural alternatives. Participants will be asked to research areas of their interest relating
to the course and make reports to the rest of the class

7] Topics to be covered :
The concepts of external costs, global warming, peak oil, food and energy trends, corporate
expansion and privatization, transportation trends, food choices, urban land use, suburbia,
local/bio regional culture, permaculture, public health, renewable energy, property conversion,
neighborhood organizing. Self and collective empowerment.

note, there will be nine class sessions [pten listed here] plus a recommended viewing of the film "The End of Suburbia."

one class will be a field trip off campus

1st session Intros all around/becoming acquainted. Why are people here? Why am I here? What
would participants like to gain from this course? What thoughts or practical experience do
participants have relating to the course? Intro to the concept of external costs. First assignment,
start a journal. The journal would identify changes participants would like to make towards
enhancing their own lives, the well being of the community, the environment or related topics.
Begin to gather articles and check out web sites, magazines relating to external costs, resources,
public health, water issues, etc. Take notes about what makes an impression, especially if
participants can relate that trend, news or issue to themselves. Materials gathered and reports
generated will be collected and consolidated into a cooperative scrap book at the end of the course.

2nd session Brief reports from session one, share with others thoughts about personal changes,
what they wrote in their journals. Then a closer look at external costs- what are some of the
unintended consequences of what we do as individuals, our economy, our way of life on the
environment, public health, urban design, foreign relations, resources, culture. Video, "Diet for a
New America" to illustrate an outstanding example of external costs, the food choices we make.
Second assignment, continue with diaries being mindful of the news, record bits and pieces that are
interesting/relevant to the course. Make a folder on your computer to save articles and web sites.
Make a hard copy folder to save hard copy items from newspapers and magazines. Volunteers to
make reports on particular examples of external costs.

3rd session Highlights from people's journals; insights, interesting facts, new ideas. Continue from
session 2. Relating what we do to consequences. Focus on transportation and urban design. Slide
show; Brief history of suburbia, graphics and statistics that reveal many interesting trends relating
to transportation, energy resources, public health and urban design and similar phenomena in other
parts of the world. Volunteers for reports for the following week.

4th session Highlights from peoples' journals. Short reports. A look at other issues including
climate change, decline in citizenship, global water trends, population growth. Various overhead
projector stats and graphs to illustrate issues discussed. Volunteers for reports.

4A Session This will be at an agreed upon time, date, location [hopefully at LCC downtown]
between the 4th and 5th sessions, to see a video "The End of Suburbia." Participation
recommended. The video, released in Spring of 2004, describes the results on our suburban
lifestyles caused by increases in the cost of energy related to Peak Oil.

5th session Highlights from participants' journals. Short reports. Summary/review of the various
issues and discussions covered up to this point. Preview of Part II. What are some of the responses
we can make as a nation, community, neighborhood and families/individuals that are healthy for
ourselves and healthier for planet earth? Assignments continue with journals and look for articles,
items describing positive initiatives for cultural and environmental renewal; local, national, global.
Good stories about renewable energy, community initiatives, individual heroes. Participants will be
asked to volunteer [briefly] for a cause, event or organization of their choice here in Eugene and
write a report to include in the group scrapbook.

6th session What is worth preserving, what is worth letting go. The myth of green automobiles.
Smart land use design-Block Planning, infill, brown fields. Local Food production, local
economies. Volunteer reports on good news about particular topics. Continue with reading,
exploring, taking notes for journals.

7th session Reports, journal tid bits. Suburban conversion, co-ops, permaculture, neighborhood
networks, local culture/fun closer to home, voluntary simplicity/your money or your life. slide
show suburban conversion and smart land use.

8th session Field trip off campus to smart land use sites in downtown, infill, eco village, housing co-op,
human scale residential, community gardens, residential permaculture in River Road. Field trip
may be at a different time from class time.

9th session Review, comments, discussion; what was most interesting, meaningful, new
perspectives on participants' own changes, civic involvement. Write up final comments for scrap
book. Plans to rendezvous in 6 months to compare notes.

10th session Put together the cooperative scrap book; articles collected, reports, personal
observations, insights, comments. Copies for each participant.

11] What Skills, education and experience do you have which have prepared you to teach this
class?

I feel qualified to lead a class in "Personal Choices On A Small Planet". The topic of how to live
a life of thoughtfulness with a smaller ecological footprint has been with me since high school days
when questioning authority was the only logical conclusion. The more "normal" priorities of
accumulation and "getting ahead" have never attracted me, so I have devoted time and energy into
understanding the world around me and developing a value system and lifestyle that, to me, makes
more sense and with the passage of time, looks like the far better choice. What I have learned is
well worth sharing with others to stimulate their own process to make lifestyle choices that work
for them in a world sure to provide us with many unfamiliar changes.

My life's experiences have been fascinating. They are all the result of being able to follow areas of
interest such as travel [over 5 years out of the country-35+ countries], the two years in Arkansas at
a "back to the land" alternative community, reading and research and having the evolving capacity
to better understand how all these ingredients and trends we read about and experience fit together
within the context of a world dominated by popular media, corporate globalization, environmental
decline and a contemporary culture that is failing us.

I have quit driving a car, grow a substantial amount of my own food, make use of solar design on
my house, have maintained a comparatively low resource vegetarian diet for over 25 years, devote
multiple hours per week to un paid community work, practice voluntary simplicity and more.

I have been part of numersous groups and have been part of organizing many educational events
and programs such as Green Eugene, Earthsave, Permaculture, Citizens' State of the City, Toxics
Right to Know, panels at E Law, HOPES Conference, Earth Day, my web site, in the neighbor -
hood, Citizens for Public Accountability, Suburban Conversion, radio, TV, newspaper interviews,
parades entries, op eds in the Register Guard, board member of RRCO. These examples are all
intended to call attention to our current state of political/economic/social/ environmental/cultural
affairs. In a nutshell, humans are making a mess of this planet in countless ways and we would be
wise to put more thought and effort into making better choices.

Existing trends do not look hopeful. Global warming, agriculture and energy, intensifying
competition for diminishing resources, declining productivity in petroleum and agriculture, public
health in crisis in the US, a pervasive disinterested/distracted public, globalization/privatization all
point to a serious and urgent need for individuals and communities to understand how these issues
are related and to make better choices to improve civic/public/economic and environmental well
being.

My offering through Continuing Education is to examine many of these problems and connect how
they are relate to each other and to our own selves. My goal is to empower class participants to be a
part of creating healthy changes in their own lives and hopefully the larger community. I am not an
expert of any particular issue but have a working knowledge of many. The course will call atten-
tion to how our own lives affect others and the environment and how that affect can be a beneficial
one. My current focus on helping to build the "River Road Neighbors' Network" is a real life,
current example of intentional and thoughtful culture change.

Lane Community College Education

Name of class

Personal Choices on a Small Planet

Syllabus Preparation Worksheet

Course Description

The course will take a look at various contemporary environmental/cultural circumstances and
connect how our personal life style choices affect and are affected by these circumstances. Class
participants will be better able to understand what is happening in the world around them and be
better prepared to make decisions in their own lives that will help improve their own health, the
environment and the larger community.

Course Objectives

Goals for the course are to call attention to many of the unintended consequences [external costs]
of what we do in our own lives, our economy, our community and nation. Then we will connect
many of those consequences to or our own behavior. We will discover many choices available to
each of us to make positive/healthy responses that will lead to healthier outcomes for ourselves,
families, neighborhoods, community, nation and world.

Class Format

Each of the ten sessions will meet for 1 1/2 hours, with a ten minute break. This course includes
lectures with weekly participant reports; visual aids such as video, slides, over head projection.
There will be "world cafe" style discussions with support from the instructor and participants.
There will be at least one field trip and a video showing, The End of Suburbia.

Materials

Participants will be encouraged to do web searches, go to the library; purchase if they prefer
various books, magazines and articles. There will be a field trip to various locations in Eugene to
illustrate many of the elements learned in class. The field trip will be by bike for those who prefer
or car for others. Participants will be encouraged to purchase "State of the World, 2004" by the
World Watch Institute. [perhaps via the LCC bookstore] The class will collaborate on a
cooperative scrap book and make copies so each participant will have record of the course.

Work Experience

A brief narrative would be appropriate here.

Summer jobs during high school and college years served to offer a lesson. Racist formans, near
absent training for the task and inadequate protection from hazardous materials left an impression
on me, avoid conventional employment.

Since college days, my employment has been virtually all self organized and complimented by a
low overhead lifestyle. I have created and found work including carpentry, house painting,
landscaping, importing [Yucatan hammocks] and more recently, mural painting.

Interesting experiences and self education in a fascinating, if self inflicted world, have attracted my
attention and energy rather than a career with a retirement. I lived for two years in rural Arkansas
on a "commune." Later, foreign travel occupied over 5 years of my life.

After returning from nearly 4 years of travel in Europe and Africa, I took up mural painting
[discovering this talent in South Africa] which has been my primary source of income since the late
80's. Keeping my life relatively simple with no debt [until I bought a house] and managing
carefully what modest assets I have has allowed me the flexibility to explore areas of cultural
interest while making time and effort available for community building. I have been involved
with activist groups and organizing educational events nearly my entire adult life.

I have continued with mural work, having painted numerous examples of public art in Eugene,
some indoors and others outdoors. I also have painted in peoples' homes and traded painting for
accomdations with interesting experiences in Italy and France.

My work is more about wanting to see a healthy and peaceful planet rather than a conventional
career and material accumulation.