We’re going on an adventure!

Welcome to the Resilient Rural Communities PBL blog! In case you didn’t know, this is the story of a group of students from Oregon and Japan that are coming together to discuss and learn about the problems facing rural communities. We will be spending 1 week in Corvallis, Oregon USA, 1 week in Wallowa County, Oregon and 2 weeks in Akita Prefecture Japan.

Today was day one of our adventure! We started the day meeting and getting to know each other. Our group consists of 3 professors (Dr. John Bliss, Dr. Nancy Rosenberger, and Dr. Ayumi SUGIMOTO), 3 students from Japan (Ryoko, Kasumi, and Yasuhiro), and 5 students from Oregon (Tiffany (that’s me!) Maya, Holly, Christian, and Andy).

Following the introductions, we started getting out and about right away. We hopped in a couple of vans and journeyed to Fitton Green Natural Area. This is a section of land that was purchased by the Green Belt land Trust and given to the City of Corvallis for use as a recreational area. 

We hiked in a ways and came to a beautiful oak savanna where we had a beautiful view of the town of Philomath. Each of us took about 15-20 minutes to make observations of of surroundings to try to gain an understanding of the history of the land and what we thought the town may have been like, by just seeing it from a distance.

We observed that the town was likely made up of people that were farmers, mill workers, and commuters to the neighboring town of Corvallis. In the surrounding landscape we also noticed a variety in the ages of the timber stands, from what looked to be old growth timber on Mary’s Peak to a freshly cut stand and a wide range in between.

Based on these observations, we came to the conclusion that there were many different landowners, with different management objectives within the area.

Following our observations and a group discussion of our findings, we looked at a map of Oregon, and discussed the layout of the state in terms of geographical regions, specifically pointing out the coast range, valley, Cascades and eastern portion of the state.

In analyzing this map, we noted that there was a distinct moisture gradient between the two sides of the Cascade Mountain Range, leaving the valley with much more precipitation than the Eastern part of the state.

Following our excursion, we returned to Oregon State University, ate lunch, and learned an anthropological conceptual framework for the class. We discussed values and how history, power, upbringing, class, capital, innovation, age, gender, race, ethnicity and other factors contributed to the values that are associated with individuals and communities.

An interesting activity that we participated in was to come up with continuums of stereotypical opposite values.

For example:

Task-oriented ——————————————-Relationship oriented

Economic———————————————————————-Moral

Traditional——————————————————————-Modern

We then had to place our own values somewhere along each continuum. It was interesting to see where we placed ourselves and why. Where would you place yourself on the continuums above? Give it a shot!

Until tomorrow!

Tiffany