Recently, technological innovation has me rethinking both my scholarship and my teaching. On the teaching side, I am no finishing up the second on-line class I have ever taught. I teach on-line courses in environmental law and water law for non-JDs. I was pretty skeptical at the start about the efficacy of on-line teaching, but my experience is starting to change my mind. On the scholarship side, much of my scholarship deals with transboundary water law, in which I have argued for basin-level governance (a cooperative, inter-jurisdictional body governing the shared resource, with the boundaries of that body’s jurisdiction being the watershed). But advances in water augmentation technology, like desalination and cloud seeding, have me reconsidering my position.
I’m not a tech-savvy person to begin with. Until only a few months ago, I used a flip phone. My kids and students mercilessly ridiculed me. I had one student yell from the back of class, “Hey, Professor Larson, 2005 called. It wants its phone back!” I finally made the switch to a smart phone after an experience at a convenience store (I seem to having a lot of epiphanies lately at Circle K). I had locked my keys in my car when I had stopped to get a soda. I went back into the store after realizing my mistake, and asked the cashier if she could contact a locksmith for me. She said, “Why don’t you just look one up on your phone?” I pulled out my flip phone and showed it to her. The look of pity on her face told me I needed to get a better phone. And I have learned that smart phones are awesome.
Well, similar realizations are impacting my teaching and scholarship. I love being in the classroom, and was not enthusiastic about teaching on-line. I feared I would feel disconnected from my students, and they would feel disconnected from each other. I did not think technology could replace the kind of interactive discussion of a true classroom. But so far I’ve been impressed with how things work. We have a discussion board for the class where students ask questions and engage in dialogue with each other. I record relatively short lectures, but spend more time on the discussion boards answering questions and going over problem sets. I think I would teach the course differently if it were for JD students, and perhaps I would be less pleased with the on-line format in that case. But I am curious about others’ experiences with on-line teaching, tips for best practices, and thoughts about its advantages and disadvantages as compared to the a brick-and-mortar classroom.
On the scholarship side, I have argued for appropriately empowered basin-level governance institutions to manage transboundary waters. But water augmentation technologies like desalination and cloud seeding have positive and negative impacts that extend beyond the watershed. Now this has always been true, but has perhaps not mattered much as those technologies were not widely used. The energy costs associated with desalination have historically been so great as to make it viable only in very energy-rich/water-poor places, like Saudi Arabia. But the technology has some a long way. In the early 1980s, desalination required about 35 kilowatts to produce a single cubic meter of fresh water. Now, it is possible to produce a single cubic meter of fresh water with 2.5 kilowatts. The combination of PV solar and pressure transfer systems (recycling pressure from the waste stream to the production stream) has made desalination an increasingly viable option for many water-stressed regions. But desalination can impact marine habitats that lie outside of the basin benefiting from the augmented water supply, to say nothing of the potential impacts of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the desalination facilities’ energy consumption.
Cloud seeding technology is not nearly as far along as desalination, nor as widely adopted or accepted as a viable augmentation strategy. But it’s improving, and the advent of unmanned aerial vehicles (aka “drones”) may lower the cost of cloud seeding and expand its use. Cloud seeding involves dispersing condensation nuclei (usually charged particles with a lot of surface area, like silver iodide) into the atmosphere to induce precipitation. One of the most significant implications of global climate change is that a warmer atmosphere will hold more water, making access to atmospheric water more important. But cloud seeding may impact where rain falls, making it rain in one basin and not in another, or else causing flooding in one basin from seeding in another. Water law, as presently constituted, is not well equipped to handle effective, broadly-implemented cloud seeding. And we dismiss the effectiveness of cloud seeding at our own peril, at least its with respect to its effectiveness in influencing law, if not making it rain. Cloud seeding was considered effective enough
Comments
I think you mean kilowatt hours rather than kilowatts. And even at the thermodynamic lower limit, desalination still isn’t going to make much sense for agriculture.
The cloud seeding stuff is fascinating, I hadn’t realized we were still working on it.
Posted by: Brad | Mar 18, 2016 11:39:35 AM
When the Cylons attack, a land line will be your best hope.
But really, it depends on the professor. An online course can be a great course, if the professor is willing to commit the time. Few are. It takes much more time for a professor to engage on a message board all week, encourage discussion, answer questions, and politely disentangle students from ill-conceived notions. I chose my LL.M. thesis manager professor based on the fact that he was not only knowledgeable, but prompt and responsive during an online class. The thoughtful give and take online was very refreshing, and when the business world is embracing an asynchronous and remote worker environment, these skills will come in handy. I’m not saying EVERY class should be online–but certainly experience in such environs can’t hurt, and certainly could be a tremendous benefit.
Posted by: Marcos Antonio Mendoza | Mar 18, 2016 12:49:42 AM
When the Cylons attack, you will appreciate your flip phone.
Posted by: Bruce Boyden | Mar 17, 2016 10:31:07 PM