Tom Cornell's Face of the Land curriculum material

Fred Wilson taught this course until the mid-1990's when he retired from Rochester Institute of Technology. (RIT) He taught it more like a geology course for non-majors. After Mr. Wilson left, it was only taught occasionally until Tom Cornell took it over in the spring of 2008. He kept some of the geological material, but added more material from the history of technology. The premise according to Mr. Cornell, is that there exists on the land around us, "large-scale structures," from different times and in varying degrees of used or decay. These structures, although material, are too big to be placed in a museum-- and often too big to be visited on one trip. But by visiting them in various places (in the case of a canal, a lock here, a section of towpath there, perhaps even an aqueduct), you can develop an overall picture. He wanted to teach it by studying those large scale structures on the terrain and realizing that the terrain is covered with layer after layer, each layer put down at a different time.

This course is a case study in the relationship of technology and society, involving off-campus field trips and focusing on the interaction of land, people and technology. By considering the natural landforms of the United States and other countries as appropriate, the students see how the nature of land determines its value. As technological innovations are made and introduced, old relationships with the land are altered, sometimes irreversibly. Through this study students have a concrete example of the positive and negative effects of technology on the social structure. Part of the science and technology studies concentration; the science technology and society minor; the environmental studies concentration and minor, the sustainable product development minor; and may also be taken as an elective.

Thomas Cornell is a professor in the RIT College of Liberal Arts, Department of Science, Technology and Society/Public Policy and Department of History