BARB LACHENBRUCH

Teaching

4 Credits, Spring Quarter

This lecture and lab course introduces students to wood quality through investigation of the structure of wood and the properties that derive from that structure. Students also learn to identify woods using a microscope and a key.   Under structure, we cover basics of the macroscopic features of wood, and then learn about the microscopic features of softwood and hardwood anatomy, including wood development and meristems, pitting, heartwood and its formation, chemical composition of cell walls, microfibrils, growth stresses, reaction wood, juvenile wood, and the concept of wood quality in general.  Special lectures relate wood anatomy to wood mechanics, paper properties, permeability, and deterioration of wood.  Most of the lab sessions are concerned with  learning the features of wood to enable students to perform wood identifications, but we often use microscopes or do other lab-like activities during lecture, as well.  Students practice communication through oral and written reports.

By the end of the course, students should be able to describe and label the location of tissues in a woody stem, list the steps one takes to identify a wood, identify woods using a key and a microscope, diagram the development of a wood cell, explain why genetics and environment affect wood properties, describe the extent and type of anatomical variation in a stem at scales ranging from the micron to the meter, predict which anatomical structures will affect which physical properties, and explain the anisotropic nature of wood from an anatomical perspective.

WSE 470, Forests, Wood and Civilization

3 Credits, Spring Quarter

This baccalaureate core class (satisfying the requirement for Global Contemporary Issues) is designed to learn about the roles of forests and wood in civilizations of the past and present, and to think about the future. I welcome junior and senior students from all majors, regardless of their background in natural resources. The course emphasizes critical thinking skills by introducing topics for which there is no correct answer. During the course students will learn about five issues:

• Historic and current services from forests.
• Variation in valuation of services by people in different cultures.
• Historic and future supply and demand for wood.
• Effects of supply and demand for wood on the 'health' of the society and its geopolitical power.
• Potential mitigation of supply and demand problems through population control, technological advances, or forestry practices.

Students will learn about these issues from class periods, readings, debates (each student will participate actively in one, but as an audience in the others), short commentaries they will write (2), and a term paper.  To get the most out of the class, students will need to be active learners because there is no text, and they will have to find much of the information needed for the assignments.