Redwoods

Some of these amazing trees are over 2,000 years old and the tallest trees on Earth

A  It could be said that the history of modern America is carved in redwood, with calls to save these giant trees being made almost as soon as people began cutting them down. In 1848, when gold was found in California, some businessmen from the East saw an easier way to get rich: they recognised the potential of the reddish, straight-grained, rot-resistant wood in a gold rush that would quadruple California’s population in a decade. As San Francisco expanded, the great forests near the city were virtually leveled. Farther north, timber entrepreneurs used fair means and foul to purchase thousands of acres of federal lands dominated by redwoods for $2.50 an acre, beginning an era of corporate logging that continued for decades. By the 1880s, some 400 sawmills north of San Francisco were churning out timber for furniture manufacturers and the construction industry.

B  Today less than five percent of the roughly two million acres of virgin redwood forest remains, mostly in reserves where logging is prohibited. Environmentalists mourn the destruction of habitats for animal species such as the spotted owl, but they aren’t the only things to have suffered. Harvest rates in the redwoods have fallen since the 1990s, when they were already half what they were in the 1970s. Communities that once boasted several timber enterprises, such as the towns of Korbel and Orick, are now lucky to have one still just about surviving. Unemployment is high in these towns and the effect is felt by everyone. ‘The battle to save the redwoods has already been fought, and there aren’t many of them left’, says Steve Sillett, a forest scientist at Humboldt State University. ‘The challenge now is understanding how to improve management of the redwoods that have been replanted and are just starting to grow.'

C  It is hard to assess forestry practices without mentioning the logging company Pacific Lumber (PL), which was started by the Murphy family in 1905. The Murphys, who learned the lumber business from the chain saw up, believed in leaving some old trees, known as ‘old growth’, standing. Albert Murphy maintained that such conservative logging practices were necessary to sustain production, and perhaps even more importantly, to maintain a high level of employment in the industry for generations to come. In 1985, however, Charles Hurwitz orchestrated the hostile takeover of PL and became its Chief Executive. Under Hurwitz, PL owned roughly 70 percent of the old redwoods remaining in private hands. More importantly for the redwoods, Hurwitz abandoned the Murphys’ approach and adopted the controversial business model of clear-cutting, which involved cutting most or all of the trees in a harvest area. This doubled -- and some years even tripled -- the annual amount of timber harvested from the company’s holdings.

D  Hurwitz’s attempts to cut the largest remaining block of old growth on private land, known as the Headwaters Forest, launched armies of young protesters and drew increased scrutiny from timber regulators. But, it was a dangerous time for the protesters. Tree sitters were extracted by force from their platforms hundreds of feet in the air and some were injured. However, PL was then bought by the Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) and the need for confrontation seemed to be over. Activists who had occupied part of an old-growth section of Headwaters Forest to keep PL from logging it received assurances from MRC’s chief forester, Mike Jani, that the redwood trees in this section would not be cut down. However, for many, this was only the beginning. Lindsey Holm, a self-taught naturalist from northern California, says that fighting to save old growth trees is straightforward and easy to gain widespread backing for. ‘Trying to get people to oppose sound new-growth logging is more challenging’, Holm explains.

E  As early as the 1930s, a forestry expert argued that if timber companies still wanted to be making a profit in the long run, they’d better start leaving some trees standing. In line with this thinking, Jani now promises that MRC will return to the earlier practice of selective cutting and thus leaving substantial numbers of old-growth trees. Jani has already implemented this approach on 230,000 acres of heavily logged redwood forest that it purchased. MRC’s policy will be to cut less than half of the overall volume of timber grown on its property each year through a variety of selection techniques. By doing this, the company will sacrifice greater short-term profits for a more sustained investment in the forest.

F  Some foresters think there’s an even better way forward. ‘My idea is also to cut down fewer trees, but what’s important is how you identify which ones’, says Jim Able, a former industrial forester for the logging company Louisiana Pacific who now manages small private timberlands. The key, Able says, is which trees you choose to remove. He and his foresters mark every tree they want to be cut, aiming never to exceed 30 to 35 percent of the forest. Able is most critical of a form of selective logging called high-grading where only the best trees are logged. By contrast, Able harvests weak and poorly formed trees, leaving the straightest and strongest to thrive in the newly available light. And unlike timbermen who routinely clear-cut in a harvest area every few decades, Able comes back once a decade to evaluate whether to cut again. He never takes more wood than the forest has grown over that time, which means that the remaining trees -- what he calls his principal -- continue to increase in height, volume, and quality.

The effectiveness of an online course

As access to the internet has continued to grow, web-based learning has continued to expand. With approximately half of the households in the United States (or 130 million people) connected to the Internet, an estimated 2 million students are taking post-secondary courses that are fully delivered online. Millions of other students at all educational levels (primary, secondary, post-secondary) participate in online courses. However, the effectiveness of online courses, particularly in relation to individual student needs, perceptions, and student outcomes, is sometimes questioned.

Common elements for learning in a typical classroom environment are the social and communicative interactions between student and teacher, and student and student. The ability to ask a question, to share an opinion with a fellow student, or to disagree with the point of view in a reading assignment are all fundamental learning activities. However, effective web-based learning requires adjustments on the part of students and teachers for successful interactions to occur. For example, many online courses provide students and faculty, and students and students with the ability to interact with each other via an electronic bulletin or discussion board.

While most studies show a link between interaction and satisfaction in web-based courses, some observers have cautioned that this is not always the case. Ruberg, Taylor and Moore, for example, observe that in order to interact successfully, students must adjust to the nonlinear nature of web-based learning. A classroom discussion is generally linear, focusing on a single discussion thread. Web-based learning sessions on an electronic bulletin board can have multiple threads with several discussions and interactions progressing simultaneously. Students need to be able to respond not only to a teacher but also to other students, depending on the interest and points of view.

Sproull and Kiesler caution about discussions based on misinformation, that continue because an instructor cannot necessarily immediately correct or clarify a comment. As a result, students need to have the experience and knowledge base to sift through the discussion for misinformation. In online learning, the amount of student interaction and the number of comments can easily lead to what is described as information overload. Furthermore, comments in online discussions tend to be lengthier than in face-to-face situations. With more information from many sources, students need to be more attentive to both the who and what of a discussion. Herbert Simon, an economist, cautions that, ‘a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.'

In examinations of interaction, the concept of ‘presence’, or a sense of being in a place and belonging to a group, has received attention. It is generally assumed that when a student is physically present in a face-to-face course, he or she has a sense of belonging to the class or group enrolled in the course and this sense of belonging is greater than that experienced online. In a face-to-face class, he or she listens to and may choose to raise a hand to comment, answer or ask a question. Furthermore, one student may develop a relationship with other students in the class and discuss topics related to the class during a break. However, this is an assumption and not always true. For various reasons, some students can also feel alienated in a face-to-face class and not feel part of a group.

The idea of presence has been redefined in relation to an online course. The simplest definition of presence for an online course refers to a student’s sense of being registered and belonging in a course, and the ability to interact with other students and an instructor even though physical contact is not available. However, as this concept is studied, the definition is expanding and being refined to include telepresence, cognitive presence, social presence, teaching presence, and other forms of presence. The term ‘community’ is related to presence and refers to a group of individuals who belong to a social unit, such as students in a class. In an online course, however, terms such as communities of inquiry, communities of learners, and knowledge-building communities have evolved.

As the definition of presence has expanded and evolved, a distinction has been made between interaction and presence, emphasizing that they are not the same. Interaction may indicate presence but it is also possible for a student to interact by posting a message on an electronic bulletin board, while not necessarily feeling that he or she is part of a group or a class.

A study conducted by Professor Anthony Picciano used questionnaires to determine students’ attitudes in relation to their interactions and sense of presence in online courses. An attempt was made to go beyond student perceptions to include performance and to compare perceptions of social presence, as well as actual participation in class activities. In addition, data was collected on performance measures that related specifically to course objectives. While much of the research, including this study, supports the strong relationship between students’ perception of interaction and perceived learning, the results of the study indicated that the relationship of actual measures of interaction and performance is mixed.

The success of many online courses is dependent upon the nature of student-to-student and student-to-faculty interaction. However, how interaction affects learning outcomes and what the relationships between the two are, is in need of further study.