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Politics in Action: Wolves, Snowmobiles, and Bison andthe Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Soleiman Kiasatpour  and
Christopher Whitfield
Soleiman Kiasatpour
Affiliation:
Western Kentucky University
Christopher Whitfield
Affiliation:
Western Kentucky University
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Extract

Faculty are always grappling with how to get their students toactively participate in learning about politics. Interest in activelearning, service learning, and other pedagogical approachesdemonstrate this concern. At the same time we are witnessing aparallel and related mission promoting civic engagement. Forexample, the American Association of State Colleges andUniversities' American Democracy Project has a civic engagementseries in which it collaborates with campuses across the UnitedStates to encourage increased political participation and civicawareness of topics such as the stewardship of public lands and juryservice, to name a few. What can instructors do in the classroom tobring these learning methods together and accomplish these goals? Wesuggest that outlining and describing the political dynamics ofinterest group activity in an interesting issue area, and thenrequiring students to advocate on behalf of these interests in classrole-play scenarios and other exercises, help to accomplish activelearning, which may lead to greater civic engagement.The authors thank Michael J. Yochim for hisinsightful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript andGeorge L. Mehaffy, vice president for Academic Leadership andChange at the American Association of State Colleges andUniversities and the founder of the American Democracy Project,for organizing our visit to Yellowstone National Park.

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Type
THE TEACHER
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 193 - 206
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

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