Joel C . Barnes
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND:
Ph.D., Union Institute & University, Environmental Conservation and Education, 2005; M.S., California State University at Humboldt, Natural Resource Studies in Wilderness and Water Resource Management, 1991; B.A., Prescott College, Environmental Sciences and Education, 1981.
TEACHING, ADMINISTRATION, AND LEADERSHIP:
I've been teaching environmental studies, sustainability, and adventure education at the secondary and college levels for over 40 years. The bulk of my career has been at Prescott College as a professor in their undergraduate and graduate programs. From 2009-2017 I led the design, delivery, and management of the Graduate Teaching Assistant Program (GTAP), which was the first program if it's kind at the College. The GTAP brought about a dozen graduate students each year to the Prescott, AZ campus where they worked with faculty to help teach undergraduate classes, explore the College's unique style of experiential education, and enrich the residential community. From 2011-2015 I served as Director of the College’s Grand Canyon Semester, a field-based conservation biology program designed around a formal partnership with Grand Canyon National Park. For three years (2017-2020) I worked at Wasatch Academy, a private international boarding high school in central Utah, as their Director of Sustainability and Experiential and Education. In 2020, I returned to teach at Prescott College as Professor Emeritus.
My teaching and research explore the ecology, conservation, and restoration of aridland river systems and watersheds in the American West. I weave together sustainability education, bioregionalism, expeditionary learning, transdisciplinary water studies, holistic ecological restoration and landscape ecology. While the Colorado Plateau serves as the geographical context of much of my career path, my teaching style is best described as interdisciplinary, experiential, and student-centered. At the heart of my teaching philosophy is my hunch that the best teachers are also the best learners; I share with my students my thirst for new knowledge, and engage with them in the experiential learning process.
My students sense my compassion for the natural world and my drive to better understand how human systems are nestled within and dependent upon the larger natural systems. The triple bottom line of sustainability resonates with me on a personal and professional level, and I strive to integrate content from environmental studies and sustainability education with the praxis of experiential education and project-based learning.
RESEARCH AND CONSULTING:
My doctoral studies (1999-2005) focused on the conservation of river systems and watersheds in the American Southwest, and included a six-year research partnership with Grand Canyon National Park to support Wild and Scenic River (WSR) designation for the Colorado River and its tributaries. As the WSR Project Leader from Prescott College, I coordinated a WSR study that included over 500 miles of rivers and streams in and adjacent to the Park. The field phase of this project was designed as a series of undergraduate courses and engaged over 80 students as field research assistants. Ultimately, this WSR study sets the stage for what would be one of the largest WSR designations ever passed by Congress, more than doubling the mileage of WSRs in the southwest. My research has advanced the College’s reputation as a leader in bioregional conservation and helped set the stage for further collaborative projects between the College and Grand Canyon National Park.
Since the early 2000's, I have served as a topical expert and consultant for Grand Canyon National Park, WILD Arizona, Prescott Creeks Preservation Association, and other champions for environmental conservation, restoration, and education. Since 2012, I have managed my own watershed restoration and education consulting business, Riparia, LLC. Riparia works with local and regional conservation organizations to advance holistic watershed health through ecological restoration and education. Project sites include the Granite Creek and Upper Verde River watersheds in the Central Arizona Highlands, and Grand Canyon’s portion of the Colorado River watershed and Dine Tribal Nation.
PERSONAL INTERESTS:
I have maintained my passion and practice of natural history, along with bioregional living and gardening, hiking, recreational boating on rivers, lakes, and oceans, a bit of surfing, and decades of conversational Spanish. I have embarked on many foreign travel & wildland expeditions for both work and play, including 50 trips down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon, extensive explorations throughout the American Southwest and the Colorado Plateau, as well New Zealand, Australia, southeastern Alaska, Costa Rica, mainland Mèxico, the Baja Peninsula, the Yucatàn Peninsula, a single trip to northern India, and a circumnavigation of Iceland.
Ph.D., Union Institute & University, Environmental Conservation and Education, 2005; M.S., California State University at Humboldt, Natural Resource Studies in Wilderness and Water Resource Management, 1991; B.A., Prescott College, Environmental Sciences and Education, 1981.
TEACHING, ADMINISTRATION, AND LEADERSHIP:
I've been teaching environmental studies, sustainability, and adventure education at the secondary and college levels for over 40 years. The bulk of my career has been at Prescott College as a professor in their undergraduate and graduate programs. From 2009-2017 I led the design, delivery, and management of the Graduate Teaching Assistant Program (GTAP), which was the first program if it's kind at the College. The GTAP brought about a dozen graduate students each year to the Prescott, AZ campus where they worked with faculty to help teach undergraduate classes, explore the College's unique style of experiential education, and enrich the residential community. From 2011-2015 I served as Director of the College’s Grand Canyon Semester, a field-based conservation biology program designed around a formal partnership with Grand Canyon National Park. For three years (2017-2020) I worked at Wasatch Academy, a private international boarding high school in central Utah, as their Director of Sustainability and Experiential and Education. In 2020, I returned to teach at Prescott College as Professor Emeritus.
My teaching and research explore the ecology, conservation, and restoration of aridland river systems and watersheds in the American West. I weave together sustainability education, bioregionalism, expeditionary learning, transdisciplinary water studies, holistic ecological restoration and landscape ecology. While the Colorado Plateau serves as the geographical context of much of my career path, my teaching style is best described as interdisciplinary, experiential, and student-centered. At the heart of my teaching philosophy is my hunch that the best teachers are also the best learners; I share with my students my thirst for new knowledge, and engage with them in the experiential learning process.
My students sense my compassion for the natural world and my drive to better understand how human systems are nestled within and dependent upon the larger natural systems. The triple bottom line of sustainability resonates with me on a personal and professional level, and I strive to integrate content from environmental studies and sustainability education with the praxis of experiential education and project-based learning.
RESEARCH AND CONSULTING:
My doctoral studies (1999-2005) focused on the conservation of river systems and watersheds in the American Southwest, and included a six-year research partnership with Grand Canyon National Park to support Wild and Scenic River (WSR) designation for the Colorado River and its tributaries. As the WSR Project Leader from Prescott College, I coordinated a WSR study that included over 500 miles of rivers and streams in and adjacent to the Park. The field phase of this project was designed as a series of undergraduate courses and engaged over 80 students as field research assistants. Ultimately, this WSR study sets the stage for what would be one of the largest WSR designations ever passed by Congress, more than doubling the mileage of WSRs in the southwest. My research has advanced the College’s reputation as a leader in bioregional conservation and helped set the stage for further collaborative projects between the College and Grand Canyon National Park.
Since the early 2000's, I have served as a topical expert and consultant for Grand Canyon National Park, WILD Arizona, Prescott Creeks Preservation Association, and other champions for environmental conservation, restoration, and education. Since 2012, I have managed my own watershed restoration and education consulting business, Riparia, LLC. Riparia works with local and regional conservation organizations to advance holistic watershed health through ecological restoration and education. Project sites include the Granite Creek and Upper Verde River watersheds in the Central Arizona Highlands, and Grand Canyon’s portion of the Colorado River watershed and Dine Tribal Nation.
PERSONAL INTERESTS:
I have maintained my passion and practice of natural history, along with bioregional living and gardening, hiking, recreational boating on rivers, lakes, and oceans, a bit of surfing, and decades of conversational Spanish. I have embarked on many foreign travel & wildland expeditions for both work and play, including 50 trips down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon, extensive explorations throughout the American Southwest and the Colorado Plateau, as well New Zealand, Australia, southeastern Alaska, Costa Rica, mainland Mèxico, the Baja Peninsula, the Yucatàn Peninsula, a single trip to northern India, and a circumnavigation of Iceland.
less
Interests
Uploads
Interviews/Video Clips by Joel C . Barnes
Conference Presentations by Joel C . Barnes
Since 1996, Lower Butte Creek has benefitted from the care and expertise of Prescott College's Butte Creek Restoration Council (BCRC). BCRC projects have focused on riparian restoration and education, and have cultivated a legacy of partnerships with Prescott Creeks (a local NGO), the City of Prescott, the University of Arizona, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, and Natural Channel Design. This presentation (originally created in 2014 then updated in 2024) serves as a "state of the creek" address by summarizing the efforts over past 2 decades to restore Lower Butte Creek, engage and educate the Prescott community in urban stream restoration, and showcase the importance of riparian areas in the desert southwest.
The Paria beach restoration site encompasses 10 acres at the mouth of the Paria River, approximately 1 mile downstream from Lees Ferry and 17 miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park. This riverside beach and desert riparian habitat is notable from a sociocultural, recreational, hydrological, and ecological standpoint. Not only is it a popular day use area with locals for fishing and picnicking, it also plays an important role in the regional riparian and river ecology. Since 1963, with the construction and operation of Glen Canyon Dam, it has been subjected to impacts from reduced flood frequency and sediment transport, and colonization of non-native riparian tamarisk into the Colorado River riparian zone. Restoration of this riparian shoreline is important to the National Park Service mission, and this site has been identified as a high priority for this type of rehabilitation project. The PBRRP compliments the broader goals of visitor use and interpretive planning for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park.
Papers by Joel C . Barnes
The River Studies and Leadership Certificate program was conceived with a vision that a new generation of young leaders is essential to create a brighter future for our nation’s rivers. The certificate is designed for undergraduate students who have become inspired to join the next generation of river professionals with a foundation of knowledge, skills and experience in river-based science, policy, conservation, education, and recreation. The Utah State University, Colorado Mesa University, University of Utah, University of Idaho and Prescott College each offer courses that fulfill the certificate requirements. Faculty from these institutions collaborate with students to design and complete a personalized academic program that empowers them to address the real world challenges facing our nation’s rivers. Each student’s program is vetted by industry professionals, practitioners, and academics from both RMS and the partnered institutions.
author’s doctoral research, which focused on the role of WSR designation in the
conservation of aridland river systems and watersheds in the American Southwest. Cross referencing this WSR Narrative Catalog and Database with the final product of the doctoral research (i.e. the dissertation) will help place the GCNP WSR Project in a broader sociopolitical and philosophical context.
Since 1998, Prescott College (PC) and the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP)
Science Center have engaged in a formal Research Partnership to determine which Grand Canyon waterways qualify for designation as Wild and Scenic Rivers. In this partnership, PC has contributed its expertise in conservation biology and wilderness leadership, while GCNP has provided access to the proposed waterways, park documents, and consultation with resource specialists. River-based research trips were conducted in the Fall of 1998, Spring of 1999, Spring of 2000, and Fall of 2000, with each trip enrolling 12-15 advanced environmental studies students from Prescott College (PC) who were organized into teams of research assistants. The field research teams were coordinated and mentored by the PC faculty and WSR project leaders Joel Barnes, Paul Sneed, and Steve Munsell, as well as GCNP Science Center staff and WSR experts (including members of the Interagency Wild and Scenic River Coordinating Council). These river-based research trips embraced a dual agenda of conservation research and education. In addition to engaging in and contributing to an important public lands conservation project, students benefited from special classes and presentations from PC faculty, visiting scientists, and park resource staff that informed their fieldwork and helped then consider the larger biological, management, sociopolitical and philosophical implications of the GCNP WSR Project.
Exemplary students from the river-based research trips were recruited to conduct the land-based research trips; this helped maintain consistency in the field research methods. Land based research trips were completed in Fall of 1999, Spring of 2000, and Spring of 2001. These trips employed essentially the same field research methods used in the river-based research except that just one or two individuals completed all the fieldwork. For each land-based trip, a series of weeklong backpacking itineraries was developed to survey selected tributaries. The land-based research made major contributions to the project, nearly doubling the total number of tributaries surveyed for WSR eligibility.
The results of the GCNP WSR Project identify 50 distinct river and stream
segments as eligible for WSR designation, totaling just over 577 miles. This includes four segments of the Colorado River mainstem from Lees Ferry to Spencer Canyon (246 miles), and 46 tributary segments in and adjacent to the park (331.2 miles). These segments are organized into four cogent groups based on the Colorado River segments from research conducted by Potochnik and Reynolds (1986). In developing these four distinct segments of the Colorado River through Grand Canyon – the Marble Canyon, Chuar, Kaibab, and Esplanade Segments - Potochnik and Reynolds considered the both the main stem and its tributaries from an integrated landscape perspective.
other closely related fields like experiential and adventure education, sustainability education, ecotourism, the natural sciences, conservation biology, public lands advocacy, wilderness-based therapy, ecopsychology and human rights and social justice. Regardless of their background, expertise, or actual job title, environmental educators should consider themselves key players in guiding individuals along their personal journey towards a deeper ecological literacy.
Five phases of learning, referred to as the Awareness to Action Continuum, have been developed that are central to strengthening one's ecological literacy. These phases are sequential, cumulative, and temporally elastic. They represent a cogent learning process that is experienced continually throughout one's lifetime, and include awareness and appreciation, knowledge and understanding, attitudes and values, problem solving skills, and personal responsibility and action. The ultimate strength of the Awareness to Action Continuum is that it builds a positive and informed framework for individuals to deepen their ecological literacy.
stewardship, and expeditionary learning.
Since 1996, Lower Butte Creek has benefitted from the care and expertise of Prescott College's Butte Creek Restoration Council (BCRC). BCRC projects have focused on riparian restoration and education, and have cultivated a legacy of partnerships with Prescott Creeks (a local NGO), the City of Prescott, the University of Arizona, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, and Natural Channel Design. This presentation (originally created in 2014 then updated in 2024) serves as a "state of the creek" address by summarizing the efforts over past 2 decades to restore Lower Butte Creek, engage and educate the Prescott community in urban stream restoration, and showcase the importance of riparian areas in the desert southwest.
The Paria beach restoration site encompasses 10 acres at the mouth of the Paria River, approximately 1 mile downstream from Lees Ferry and 17 miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park. This riverside beach and desert riparian habitat is notable from a sociocultural, recreational, hydrological, and ecological standpoint. Not only is it a popular day use area with locals for fishing and picnicking, it also plays an important role in the regional riparian and river ecology. Since 1963, with the construction and operation of Glen Canyon Dam, it has been subjected to impacts from reduced flood frequency and sediment transport, and colonization of non-native riparian tamarisk into the Colorado River riparian zone. Restoration of this riparian shoreline is important to the National Park Service mission, and this site has been identified as a high priority for this type of rehabilitation project. The PBRRP compliments the broader goals of visitor use and interpretive planning for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park.
The River Studies and Leadership Certificate program was conceived with a vision that a new generation of young leaders is essential to create a brighter future for our nation’s rivers. The certificate is designed for undergraduate students who have become inspired to join the next generation of river professionals with a foundation of knowledge, skills and experience in river-based science, policy, conservation, education, and recreation. The Utah State University, Colorado Mesa University, University of Utah, University of Idaho and Prescott College each offer courses that fulfill the certificate requirements. Faculty from these institutions collaborate with students to design and complete a personalized academic program that empowers them to address the real world challenges facing our nation’s rivers. Each student’s program is vetted by industry professionals, practitioners, and academics from both RMS and the partnered institutions.
author’s doctoral research, which focused on the role of WSR designation in the
conservation of aridland river systems and watersheds in the American Southwest. Cross referencing this WSR Narrative Catalog and Database with the final product of the doctoral research (i.e. the dissertation) will help place the GCNP WSR Project in a broader sociopolitical and philosophical context.
Since 1998, Prescott College (PC) and the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP)
Science Center have engaged in a formal Research Partnership to determine which Grand Canyon waterways qualify for designation as Wild and Scenic Rivers. In this partnership, PC has contributed its expertise in conservation biology and wilderness leadership, while GCNP has provided access to the proposed waterways, park documents, and consultation with resource specialists. River-based research trips were conducted in the Fall of 1998, Spring of 1999, Spring of 2000, and Fall of 2000, with each trip enrolling 12-15 advanced environmental studies students from Prescott College (PC) who were organized into teams of research assistants. The field research teams were coordinated and mentored by the PC faculty and WSR project leaders Joel Barnes, Paul Sneed, and Steve Munsell, as well as GCNP Science Center staff and WSR experts (including members of the Interagency Wild and Scenic River Coordinating Council). These river-based research trips embraced a dual agenda of conservation research and education. In addition to engaging in and contributing to an important public lands conservation project, students benefited from special classes and presentations from PC faculty, visiting scientists, and park resource staff that informed their fieldwork and helped then consider the larger biological, management, sociopolitical and philosophical implications of the GCNP WSR Project.
Exemplary students from the river-based research trips were recruited to conduct the land-based research trips; this helped maintain consistency in the field research methods. Land based research trips were completed in Fall of 1999, Spring of 2000, and Spring of 2001. These trips employed essentially the same field research methods used in the river-based research except that just one or two individuals completed all the fieldwork. For each land-based trip, a series of weeklong backpacking itineraries was developed to survey selected tributaries. The land-based research made major contributions to the project, nearly doubling the total number of tributaries surveyed for WSR eligibility.
The results of the GCNP WSR Project identify 50 distinct river and stream
segments as eligible for WSR designation, totaling just over 577 miles. This includes four segments of the Colorado River mainstem from Lees Ferry to Spencer Canyon (246 miles), and 46 tributary segments in and adjacent to the park (331.2 miles). These segments are organized into four cogent groups based on the Colorado River segments from research conducted by Potochnik and Reynolds (1986). In developing these four distinct segments of the Colorado River through Grand Canyon – the Marble Canyon, Chuar, Kaibab, and Esplanade Segments - Potochnik and Reynolds considered the both the main stem and its tributaries from an integrated landscape perspective.
other closely related fields like experiential and adventure education, sustainability education, ecotourism, the natural sciences, conservation biology, public lands advocacy, wilderness-based therapy, ecopsychology and human rights and social justice. Regardless of their background, expertise, or actual job title, environmental educators should consider themselves key players in guiding individuals along their personal journey towards a deeper ecological literacy.
Five phases of learning, referred to as the Awareness to Action Continuum, have been developed that are central to strengthening one's ecological literacy. These phases are sequential, cumulative, and temporally elastic. They represent a cogent learning process that is experienced continually throughout one's lifetime, and include awareness and appreciation, knowledge and understanding, attitudes and values, problem solving skills, and personal responsibility and action. The ultimate strength of the Awareness to Action Continuum is that it builds a positive and informed framework for individuals to deepen their ecological literacy.
stewardship, and expeditionary learning.