Tournament-Style Debate as a Natural Resources Education Technique.

ABSTRACT Curricula in the natural resource professions are placing increased emphasis on course work dealing with the larger phil­osophical and value-related questions surrounding resource management. This development presents a challenge to instruc­tors, particularly in terms of encouraging active student involve­ment in such courses. The use of tournament debate format provides one useful means for fostering such involvement while also aiding in the development of oral communication skills. The authors' experience with the use of debate suggests that certain modifications to traditional debate format aid in its suc­cessful classroom use. A FORMIDABLE BARRIER to learning is created whenever a student views a course as merely a requirement with little intrinsic appeal or direct applicability to his or her future. Many students of the natural resource man­agement professions often view classes in policy and other related management and social sciences as irksome. They enthusiastically take on, however, field-oriented techni­cal courses such as dendrology, ornithology, or range plants. Classes that deal with larger philosophical ques­tions such as, "Why manage a given parcel of land to achieve a particular end?," seem to many students as ab­stract and far removed from the daily activities of land management and hence of little interest. Yet a student's ability to analytically deal with these why questions is as crucial as the natural resource profession's struggle to redefine a niche in today's rapidly changing world (Gregg, 1992). The emergence of these why questions has resulted in greater emphasis in resource management curricula on topics such as policy, ethics, and the relationship of land management to the larger society and global ecosystem (Gilbert et aI., 1993). The problem remains, however, of how to teach these subjects while holding students' at­tention and stimulating interest. Natural resource edu­cators often find that many natural resource students are more comfortable and active in classes that grapple with questions of how to accomplish some goal rather than those concerned with why the goal exists at all. The how questions tend to be concrete, and students easily see their application to daily decisions. The why questions are more abstract and their specific relevance is less easily grasped.