Class Schedules

Seasonal and annual patterns of temperature and precipitation influence the development, success and collapse of civilizations. Regional climate determines numerous things about how humans adapt to survive there, including the type of shelter needed, the length of the growing season, and the availability/scarcity of freshwater. Using a combination of scientific and historical records, this course will provide a brief introduction to the climate system and will then focus on how changes in climate affected several societies throughout history. In the latter part of the course we will discuss observed global warming in the modern world, what the potential benefits and consequences of it may be, and whether or not there are lessons to be learned from our ancestors.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual 'lenses': Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week. Students must complete the corresponding Permissions and Waitlists form in order to be permitted to enroll, see the department website for forms.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual 'lenses': Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week. Students must complete the corresponding Permissions and Waitlists form in order to be permitted to enroll, see the department website for forms.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual 'lenses': Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week. Students must complete the corresponding Permissions and Waitlists form in order to be permitted to enroll, see the department website for forms.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual 'lenses': Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week. Students must complete the corresponding Permissions and Waitlists form in order to be permitted to enroll, see the department website for forms.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual 'lenses': Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week. Students must complete the corresponding Permissions and Waitlists form in order to be permitted to enroll, see the department website for forms.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course offers an introduction to the patterns and processes that shape Earth's physical environments, with a focus on understanding human interactions within these systems. Topics covered include the fundamental principles of climate and weather, water resources, landforms, earth surface processes, vegetation, and ecosystem dynamics at global and regional scales. We will also learn how the spatial and temporal patterns of these processes are interpreted and understood using maps produced from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Position System (GPS) and satellite imagery. Using selected studies we will also examine the social forces that interact with many of these systems to gain insights into the broader understanding of the socio-environmental dynamics of these physical environments. The course consists of lectures, discussions, hands-on exercises, field excursions, and exams.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Using the lens of political ecology to probe a variety of local and global case studies, we will examine how natural resource conflicts are shaped by multiple kinds of power. We will interrogate what is assumed and taken-for-granted in natural resources management and examine the dominant institutions and tools shaping territories, land access and use, oil and mineral extraction, biodiversity conservation, and struggles over the energy transition. While this course looks to make visible how states and elites shape space through natural resource control, it also attends to how marginalized people and communities work to defend and remake their lives and livelihoods in the face of displacement, dispossession, and degradation.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How do environmental decisions impact human health? This course uses a public health and critical social science lens to examine the health impacts of environmental decisions in local and global contexts. We will pay particular attention to environmental decision-making and environmental health in development efforts. The class will employ case studies to explore health implications of water management and treatment, population change, toxins and industrial disasters, energy resource development, indoor and outdoor air pollution, climate change, industrial agriculture and pesticide use, and environmental inequalities. Students will learn to apply basic public health principles, including epidemiology, dose response, disease burden, and risk assessment.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Human beings have an unprecedented ability to shape the environment around them, yet the environment powerfully shapes both individuals and species. Two main questions run throughout this course: 1. How does language influence the way we think about and perceive nature, which in turn influences the way we interact with and shape nature? 2. How has our environment shaped the Language faculty and individual languages? To answer these questions, we'll start by asking, what is language and what is nature? Then we'll turn to the way that our environment has impacted the evolution of Language. Next we'll look at indigenous knowledge as it is encoded by language and the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, which says that language influences the way we perceive the world. With this as background, we'll look at the language of environmental discourse. Next, using the metaphor of ecology, we'll examine languages as if they were organisms and analyze the ecosystems that sustain them. Knowing what makes a healthy language, we'll look at endangered languages and the connections between linguistic diversity and biodiversity.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces students to the science and the art of negotiation to address environmental problem-solving opportunities. Through the lens of negotiations and organizational behavior we will examine challenges that arise in environmental policy-making, natural resource management, and community decision-making. Students will develop a personal set of negotiation skills through participation in weekly simulations while simultaneously building and defining a portfolio of effective communication and leadership capabilities.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces you to the study of human-environment interactions from a geographic perspective, with a special emphasis on agriculture. We will examine environmental issues in a variety of geographic contexts (developed and developing countries) and the connections between environmental problems in different locations. Beyond agriculture, we will also examine other sectoral issues in relation to agriculture or as stand alone environmental concerns. These themes include: human population growth, consumption, biodiversity, climate change, and environmental health. We will be trying on a number of theoretical lenses from geography's broad human-environment tradition (such as physical geography, cultural ecology, commodity chain analysis, political ecology, resource geography, the human dimensions of global change, hazards geography and environmental justice). In other words, I not only want us to explore a range of environmental issues, but also to grapple with theory and how this informs our understanding of the human-environment interface.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

People have always had to contend with the natural world, but only recently have historians begun to explore the changing relationships between people and their environment over time. In this course, we will examine the variety of ways that people in North America have shaped the environment, as well as how they have used, labored in, abused, conserved, protected, rearranged, polluted, cleaned, and thought about it. In addition, we will explore how various characteristics of the natural world have affected the broad patterns of human society, sometimes harming or hindering life and other times enabling rapid development and expansion. By bringing nature into the study of human history and the human past into the study of nature, we will begin to see the connections and interdependencies between the two that are often overlooked.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Rural utopias, the romanticization of nature, and the enduring escapism of sustainable living….ducklings in the garden, laundry drying in the sun, and reading poetry under a giant oak tree. What is the appeal of the internet subculture known as “cottagecore” and why does it speak to such a diverse range of people—from trad wives to queer teenagers—in our current moment? This course takes cottagecore as our frame of reference for thinking about the intersection of aesthetics, climate change, and ecological readings of literature (knows as ecocriticism). We will study pastoral poetry alongside contemporary climate disaster, consider the intersection of rural living and mental health, and follow witchy-sorts into their various dwellings and quaint villages. Students should be eager to develop as intrinsically-motivated learners this semester as we encounter a range of texts and films and engage in rigorous process-oriented writing and experiential learning. This course fulfills the WP and Internationalism gen-ed requirements.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Since the development of the first atomic weapon, nuclear power has come to define the American and global political and cultural landscape. Fantasies of annihilation and ruin not only define the contemporary political imaginary but also obscure the past and delimit notions of time, space, and futurity  Join us as we trace contemporary U.S. history and environmental policy and the stakes of "wastelanding" through art, culture and activism.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What is the history and evolution of environmental thinking and writing?  How have writers shaped the ways we understand our relationship with the natural world?  This course explores these questions, drawing in roughly equal measure on 'classic' texts from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.  The ideas introduced by these classic texts are still present, implicitly and explicitly, in much of today's environmental discourse. This course will use a selection of books and papers that have had a major impact on academic and wider public thinking - primarily but not exclusively in the USA.  Through engaged discussion, we will trace the impact of each text, beginning with the context in which it was written and ending with its influence on our contemporary understandings of the environment.  In addition, we will seek to understand the characteristics of 'classic' texts that hold attention, encourage new ways of thinking, and facilitate social change. Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor or two of the following: ENVI 133, ENVI 240, ENVI 215, ENVI 234,  ENVI 170.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

No river looms larger in north American history than the Mississippi, which meanders within acouple miles of Macalester’s tree-lined campus. Flowing through the geographic heart of thecontinent, the Mississippi has shaped the region’s economic, social, political, and cultural historysince before the U.S. existed. This course will examine the river’s environmental history – howthe river’s physical form has changed and been changed over time, and what those changes havemeant for people’s livelihoods and worldviews. We will dig into the geologic and geographicforces that shaped the river valley, Indigenous views of the river past and present, slavery and thecommercialization and industrialization of the river, and 20th -century stories of agriculturaldevelopment, pollution, flooding, dams and levees, and conservation. Using interdisciplinaryhistorical tools, we’ll examine case studies from the river north and south, from Itasca to NewOrleans, but with special attention to Minnesota and Midwest histories.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

America’s most long-lasting impact overseas has often come through environmentalmanipulations. This course will start in the early 20th century examining U.S. consumption ofbananas, coffee, and oil and centering the people and landscapes that produced thosecommodities. Next, we will examine how Americans have shaped landscapes and communitiesoverseas through warfare: we will visit battlefields and “militarized landscapes” in Normandy,Hiroshima, Korea, and Vietnam -- but also, surprisingly, in Hanford, Washington, Love Canal,New York, and hundreds of PFAS sites around the U.S. To tell global stories of Americanempire, we will zoom in on interwoven local ecosystems and communities, mostly overseas,often in Asia, but some within U.S. borders. We will also examine how nature shaped and oftenlimited or foiled the U.S. “superpower.” Nature was often exploited and reconfigured, bombedand bulldozed, but it was no passive actor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In the 21st century, a major challenge facing the planet is the accelerating loss ofbiodiversity around the world. This course will examine the explosion of national parks aroundthe world in the last century to protect biodiversity, and investigate the shift from “fortressconservation” models of protected areas, which often displaced Indigenous and localcommunities, to more recent community-based models of conserving nature. The first part of thiscourse will focus on examples of national parks in the US, Africa, and Asia. The second part ofthe course will examine community-based programs around the world, especially success stories.A key focus of the course will be a class project working with Nepal’s Chitwan TharuCulture Museum (at their request) to make a display on “parks and people” for their museum,which borders Chitwan National Park, Nepal’s oldest park. Students will examine primarymaterials from interviews and historical documents but also will do zoom interviews withcommunity members and NGO workers in Nepal. Nepal has seen its share of fortressconservation but also pioneering models of community-based management strategies.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course focuses on one of the world’s most vibrant regions, Latin America and the Caribbean. Extending from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego, this world region stretches across diverse landscapes, from tropical rainforests to the snowcapped peaks of the Andes, from mega-cities to verdant plains and sparsely populated deserts. This course is a broad introduction to Latin American environments and peoples from a geographic perspective, with emphasis on human-environment processes. Major topics include the dynamics of climate, physical geography, and natural hazards; how indigenous peoples of the Americas transformed their environments, especially through agriculture; how European colonialism and the Columbian Exchange altered patterns of land use, labor, and trade; the development patterns of modern nation-states within a globalized economy; the environmental and social impacts of commodity production (e.g. coffee in Central America, rubber in the Amazon); challenges to and persistence of small-scale agriculture in the Andean region; the causes and consequences of tropical deforestation; conflicts over land and natural resources; the resilience and political resurgence of indigenous groups and people of African descent, and the evolution of pluriethnic or multinational states; and the causes of mass urbanization and the environmental problems of cities. Along the way, we will examine the human-environment geography of various regions and countries such as The Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, Brazil, the Andean Countries, and Argentina.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In the minds of many Americans, cities are places where nature is absent-places where nature exists only in the crevices and on the margins of spaces dominated by technology, concrete, and human artifice. This course confronts this assumption directly, drawing on the scholarship from the relatively young field of urban environmental history to uncover the deep interconnections between urban America and the natural world. Among the other things, we will examine how society has drawn upon nature to build and sustain urban growth, the implications that urban growth has for transforming ecosystems both local and distant, and how social values have guided urbanites as they have built and rearranged the world around them. Using the Twin Cities has a backdrop and constant reference point, we will attempt to understand the constantly changing ways that people, cities, and nature have shaped and reshaped one another throughout American history.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the theory and application of digital imagery data analysis in geographic research. It places a strong emphasis on developing both a conceptual understanding of fundamental remote sensing concepts and practical skills for analyzing human-environmental issues such as deforestation, urban expansion, or other changes in land surface across space or time. The focus is on the interpretation and applications of data from spaceborne systems (e.g. Landsat, Sentinel-2), but other sources of remote sensing data (e.g. unmanned aerial vehicles) will be introduced too. The course structure includes f lecture periods to explore specific remote sensing f concepts, hands-on labs that take students through the major mapping and analysis methods, and individual student projects. A basic understanding of geographic data is recommended to take this class. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Ecology and environmental science are increasingly using 'big data' to expand and refine research questions. We will examine, analyze, and interpret datasets that represent a wide range of ecological topics and approaches, including nutrient cycling, hydrology, climate change, human and animal migration, satellite remote sensing, and biodiversity. The course will examine recent literature and apply novel analyses using open-access data and code every week. We will build skills in R programming, science communication, data visualization, and critical examination of literature. The course is project-oriented and students will work independently and in small groups to dive deeply into large data using R/RStudio, and produce original analyses and results. Three lecture hours and three hours of laboratory each week. Prerequisite(s): BIOL 170; and STAT 112 or STAT 155

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Ecology and environmental science are increasingly using 'big data' to expand and refine research questions. We will examine, analyze, and interpret datasets that represent a wide range of ecological topics and approaches, including nutrient cycling, hydrology, climate change, human and animal migration, satellite remote sensing, and biodiversity. The course will examine recent literature and apply novel analyses using open-access data and code every week. We will build skills in R programming, science communication, data visualization, and critical examination of literature. The course is project-oriented and students will work independently and in small groups to dive deeply into large data using R/RStudio, and produce original analyses and results. Three lecture hours and three hours of laboratory each week. Prerequisite(s): BIOL 170; and STAT 112 or STAT 155

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Earth’s climate has evolved with the planet itself as changing boundary conditions in the ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere and lithosphere have caused ice ages, periods of extreme warmth and mass extinctions. Information about these events is contained in the geologic record in the form of fossils and rock sequences, but also in lake and ocean sediments, ice sheets, cave deposits and tree rings. This course will provide an overview of variations in climate throughout Earth history while simultaneously examining the proxies and archives used to reconstruct those changes. We will also construct our own record of the paleoclimate using cores from a local lake and a variety of laboratory techniques. Prerequisite(s): ENVI 240, ENVI 150 or GEOL 160

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

The Arctic is Earth's most rapidly warming region. It is also home to massive carbon reservoirs and diverse biological adaptations to extreme elements, as well as home to Indigenous populations and the site of oil extraction and vanishing sea ice. We will examine how climate change is impacting the biodiversity, ecophysiology, and biogeochemistry of this crucial biome, and as a result, the rest of the world. As an upper-level biology course, Arctic Ecology aims to challenge students to improve their science communication skills through varied written, spoken, and visual presentations. Students will also be challenged to synthesize content across systems and create novel hypotheses about current and future impacts of change at a species, community, ecosystem, and landscape scale. Three lecture hours each week. Prerequisite(s): BIOL 170

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course explores the human determinants of infectious diseases ranging from Paleolithic parasites to 21 st Century pathogens. Yet even as we examine the latest disease threats, we will find that their evolution and emergence in human populations are largely based on ancient and recurring themes – i.e. the ways that people have interacted with, and disrupted, their natural and social environments. These lessons will help us gain further understanding into current issues such as animal- human spillover events, the evolution of virulence, and the inevitable rise of antibiotic resistance. This course is especially geared for students who enjoy making connections between the social and natural sciences. Previous courses in biology and anthropology are recommended but not required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The purpose of this course is to understand the practices and concepts that constitute the movement for sustainable cities and investigate the ways urban sustainability initiatives are generated and how they vary geographically. The course adopts a political economy perspective to trace the complex interactions of institutions, politics, and economic systems that shape initiatives for more sustainable cities. Students will work in the first part of the course to enhance their understanding of core concepts and best practices that constitute the professional field of sustainable urban development and assemble a framework for analyzing the ways sustainability initiatives come to fruition and approach the idea of sustainability in a particular way. Equipped with this framework, we then analyze case studies in the second part of course that focus on the meaning of sustainability, its practice internationally, and the ultimate impact of these practices on ecological balance, economic sustainability, and social equity in the urban environment. Toward these ends, students will conduct a semester-long capstone research project that investigates a particular urban sustainability initiative in the world by tracing the political economy of its creation and considering its impact on society, economy, and environment. Corequisite(s): Permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is an intensive internship experience (8-10 hours/week) with an environmental organization or business in the Twin Cities metro region. An internship is an excellent way for students to apply knowledge learned in the classroom and laboratory, to learn more in an environmental area, and to explore career options. Required for Environmental Studies majors. It is recommended that students complete this course during the fall of their senior year. Graded S/SD/N only. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor required. Corequisite(s): ENVI 490

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This Senior capstone seminar complements the internship experience by bringing together students to discuss common experiences and reflect on professional development challenges. Weekly assignments include reflective writing, mentor profiles, mock job interviews and meetings with ES alums and community leaders. Prerequisite(s): For Environmental Studies majors only. Corequisite(s): ENVI 489

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Shifting plates, shiny gemstones, hot lava, sheets of ice, rocky planets! This course will delve into fascinating geoscience topics, introducing you to the physical materials and structure of the Earth and other planets, as well as the processes responsible for the creation, change, and destruction of parts of the Earth system. Topics include volcanoes, earthquakes, Solar System formation, the water cycle, and climate change. We will discuss some aspects of the history of scientific thought, look at maps, consider the societal relevance of geology (e.g., modern careers, natural hazards, resource extraction, environmental problems), and admire beautiful rocks. Required for geology majors. Field trip(s). Three 1-hour lectures and one 3-hour lab per week.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Shifting plates, shiny gemstones, hot lava, sheets of ice, rocky planets! This course will delve into fascinating geoscience topics, introducing you to the physical materials and structure of the Earth and other planets, as well as the processes responsible for the creation, change, and destruction of parts of the Earth system. Topics include volcanoes, earthquakes, Solar System formation, the water cycle, and climate change. We will discuss some aspects of the history of scientific thought, look at maps, consider the societal relevance of geology (e.g., modern careers, natural hazards, resource extraction, environmental problems), and admire beautiful rocks. Required for geology majors. Field trip(s). Three 1-hour lectures and one 3-hour lab per week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Shifting plates, shiny gemstones, hot lava, sheets of ice, rocky planets! This course will delve into fascinating geoscience topics, introducing you to the physical materials and structure of the Earth and other planets, as well as the processes responsible for the creation, change, and destruction of parts of the Earth system. Topics include volcanoes, earthquakes, Solar System formation, the water cycle, and climate change. We will discuss some aspects of the history of scientific thought, look at maps, consider the societal relevance of geology (e.g., modern careers, natural hazards, resource extraction, environmental problems), and admire beautiful rocks. Required for geology majors. Field trip(s). Three 1-hour lectures and one 3-hour lab per week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Shifting plates, shiny gemstones, hot lava, sheets of ice, rocky planets! This course will delve into fascinating geoscience topics, introducing you to the physical materials and structure of the Earth and other planets, as well as the processes responsible for the creation, change, and destruction of parts of the Earth system. Topics include volcanoes, earthquakes, Solar System formation, the water cycle, and climate change. We will discuss some aspects of the history of scientific thought, look at maps, consider the societal relevance of geology (e.g., modern careers, natural hazards, resource extraction, environmental problems), and admire beautiful rocks. Required for geology majors. Field trip(s). Three 1-hour lectures and one 3-hour lab per week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Shifting plates, shiny gemstones, hot lava, sheets of ice, rocky planets! This course will delve into fascinating geoscience topics, introducing you to the physical materials and structure of the Earth and other planets, as well as the processes responsible for the creation, change, and destruction of parts of the Earth system. Topics include volcanoes, earthquakes, Solar System formation, the water cycle, and climate change. We will discuss some aspects of the history of scientific thought, look at maps, consider the societal relevance of geology (e.g., modern careers, natural hazards, resource extraction, environmental problems), and admire beautiful rocks. Required for geology majors. Field trip(s). Three 1-hour lectures and one 3-hour lab per week.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course dives into a range of topics to study how species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes function in our changing climate. We will emphasize biological nutrient and energy cycling, population dynamics, animal and plant species interactions, disturbances and response to disturbances, and ecology in urban and agricultural landscapes. We will examine Ecology under four conceptual ’lenses’: Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Land Use, and Ecosystem Services. These lenses provide critical insight into how scientists, policy makers, land managers, and other stakeholders evaluate complex ecological and environmental systems. Labs will be field and data-based, and emphasize the development of hypotheses, novel data collection at Ordway Field Station, and statistical analysis. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory each week.

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Course Materials

Responsible for 30% of global gas emissions and three-quarters of tropical deforestation, while failing to eradicate hunger for over 600 million people, our global food and agriculture system is broken. What alternatives are there? This course explores agroecology, a food movement rooted in agro-ecological science, sustainable farming practices, and sovereignty movements worldwide. The course will focus on the history, politics, and social movement of agroecology while also introducing students to agroecological science and practices through farm-based field trips and lab visits.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This class invites you to reflect on your relationship to water, saltwater, and their protectors. Centered on two texts, Cooling the Tropics by Hi‘ilei Hobart and Theory of Water by Leanne Simpson, our class will explore theories of ice and water, and their implications for everyday living. Alongside these main texts, the course includes scholarship, storytelling, and community voices that help explore questions like who and where is moana? And why does knowing moana matter in our current times and for the times ahead?

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Urban ecology is both a concept and a field of study. It focuses on interactions between humans, urban ecosystems, and the built environment. With over half of the world's population now living in cities, cities have assumed a critical role in shaping local, regional, and global ecologies. In this course, we will examine the distinctiveness of the interconnected urban biophysical, socio-economic, and political processes. In order to disentangle the complexity of human-environment relations in cities, we will take an interdisciplinary approach and learn theories and concepts in natural science ecology, environmental studies, geography, urban planning, sociology, and public policies. We will use our campus and the Twin Cities as a "living laboratory" and apply these theories and concepts to laboratory exercises, field observation, case studies, and research on contemporary urban sustainability initiatives.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course offers an introduction to the patterns and processes that shape Earth's physical environments, with a focus on understanding human interactions within these systems. Topics covered include the fundamental principles of climate and weather, water resources, landforms, earth surface processes, vegetation, and ecosystem dynamics at global and regional scales. We will also learn how the spatial and temporal patterns of these processes are interpreted and understood using maps produced from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Position System (GPS) and satellite imagery. Using selected studies we will also examine the social forces that interact with many of these systems to gain insights into the broader understanding of the socio-environmental dynamics of these physical environments. The course consists of lectures, discussions, hands-on exercises, field excursions, and exams.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Using the lens of political ecology to probe a variety of local and global case studies, we will examine how natural resource conflicts are shaped by multiple kinds of power. We will interrogate what is assumed and taken-for-granted in natural resources management and examine the dominant institutions and tools shaping territories, land access and use, oil and mineral extraction, biodiversity conservation, and struggles over the energy transition. While this course looks to make visible how states and elites shape space through natural resource control, it also attends to how marginalized people and communities work to defend and remake their lives and livelihoods in the face of displacement, dispossession, and degradation.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The field of environmental ethics sparks a rich line of philosophical inquiry largely focused on the moral status of the natural world and the non-human entities within it. What reasons do we have to give moral consideration to the environment? And what do we mean when we say we have a moral duty toward the environment? Do we have moral duties to individuals within a species, or to species themselves, or to ecosystems, or to...? This course will invite you to reflect on key philosophical works that engage these and related questions. This course relies heavily on scholarship in Indigenous Environmental Justice and depending on the semester, may also include the debate over the ethics of wilderness preservation; global climate change and resource sustainability; rights of water and other so-called 'natural objects' such as trees, plants, and rocks.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Human beings have an unprecedented ability to shape the environment around them, yet the environment powerfully shapes both individuals and species. Two main questions run throughout this course: 1. How does language influence the way we think about and perceive nature, which in turn influences the way we interact with and shape nature? 2. How has our environment shaped the Language faculty and individual languages? To answer these questions, we'll start by asking, what is language and what is nature? Then we'll turn to the way that our environment has impacted the evolution of Language. Next we'll look at indigenous knowledge as it is encoded by language and the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, which says that language influences the way we perceive the world. With this as background, we'll look at the language of environmental discourse. Next, using the metaphor of ecology, we'll examine languages as if they were organisms and analyze the ecosystems that sustain them. Knowing what makes a healthy language, we'll look at endangered languages and the connections between linguistic diversity and biodiversity.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces you to the study of human-environment interactions from a geographic perspective, with a special emphasis on agriculture. We will examine environmental issues in a variety of geographic contexts (developed and developing countries) and the connections between environmental problems in different locations. Beyond agriculture, we will also examine other sectoral issues in relation to agriculture or as stand alone environmental concerns. These themes include: human population growth, consumption, biodiversity, climate change, and environmental health. We will be trying on a number of theoretical lenses from geography's broad human-environment tradition (such as physical geography, cultural ecology, commodity chain analysis, political ecology, resource geography, the human dimensions of global change, hazards geography and environmental justice). In other words, I not only want us to explore a range of environmental issues, but also to grapple with theory and how this informs our understanding of the human-environment interface.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

People have always had to contend with the natural world, but only recently have historians begun to explore the changing relationships between people and their environment over time. In this course, we will examine the variety of ways that people in North America have shaped the environment, as well as how they have used, labored in, abused, conserved, protected, rearranged, polluted, cleaned, and thought about it. In addition, we will explore how various characteristics of the natural world have affected the broad patterns of human society, sometimes harming or hindering life and other times enabling rapid development and expansion. By bringing nature into the study of human history and the human past into the study of nature, we will begin to see the connections and interdependencies between the two that are often overlooked.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course provides students a basic understanding of the most important biophysical and social characteristics of the dominant landscapes of the Neotropics. The Neotropical realm refers to the biogeographic region that includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and South America's temperate zone. These areas provide a range of services-both locally and globally-including water sources, climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation. They are also home to various human populations and support the livelihood of local and global human populations. Among others, these include tropical rain forests, Andean páramos, tropical dry forests, wetlands, deserts and temperate forests of southern South America. For each of these landscapes, we will learn the key biophysical processes that govern their functioning. We also study the peoples that live in them including indigenous communities, afro-descendants, and mestizos. Finally, using examples of these areas, we also analyze human-environment interactions including land-use change, biodiversity, resource and cultural conservation, and climate change impacts and responses.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The Earth's climate system is complex and dynamic, and yet understanding this system is crucial in order to address concerns about anthropogenic influences on climate. In this course, we examine the basic physical and chemical processes that control the modern climate system, including the role of incoming solar radiation, the greenhouse effect, ocean and atmospheric circulation, and El Nino. We also look critically at the methods and archives used to reconstruct climate in the past, such as ice cores, marine and lake sediments, and cave deposits. We explore the possible effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on modern and future climate by critically examining the models used in climate prediction, and discuss the challenges of modeling such a complex system. Although this course is taught from a primarily scientific perspective, it includes frequent discussions of the roles policy and economics play in the current dialogue on global climate change.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

The Earth's climate system is complex and dynamic, and yet understanding this system is crucial in order to address concerns about anthropogenic influences on climate. In this course, we examine the basic physical and chemical processes that control the modern climate system, including the role of incoming solar radiation, the greenhouse effect, ocean and atmospheric circulation, and El Nino. We also look critically at the methods and archives used to reconstruct climate in the past, such as ice cores, marine and lake sediments, and cave deposits. We explore the possible effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on modern and future climate by critically examining the models used in climate prediction, and discuss the challenges of modeling such a complex system. Although this course is taught from a primarily scientific perspective, it includes frequent discussions of the roles policy and economics play in the current dialogue on global climate change.

General Education Requirements:

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Course Materials

A parliament of birds. A woman made of flowers. The universe as a giant egg. These are just a few of the fascinating concepts we’ll cover in this course as we explore how medieval thinkers blended science and legend in their understanding of the natural world. Before the Scientific Revolution, people sought to understand how the human body and mind were connected to the non-human world. They asked questions like: How did circuits of the planets affect the human circulatory system? What plants caused death, and which plants could prevent it? Do animals have a language? People answered these questions by drawing on observation, Biblical tradition, Greek and Roman writing, Celtic mythology, and folklore. Contrary to popular belief, medieval scientists believed that Nature was mathematically perfect and beautiful. Of course, it was also mysterious and often frightening. By tracing literary and scientific discourses of nature in the Latin West, we will learn more about the human need to understand and fit into our larger non-human world.This class fulfills the medieval period requirement for the English major.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is built around the argument that "environmental problems" do not exist; they are in fact human behavior problems. Thus, if we want to craft effective solutions to issues such as ocean acidification, air pollution, or climate change, we must start with the human behaviors that lead to them. We will cover psychological principles, theories, and methods and explore the complex web of factors underlying environmentally sustainable and unsustainable actions. A strong theme throughout the semester is the intersection of identity - personal, social, and cultural - and environmentalism.  We will explore questions such as, "Why do some groups of people feel a part of the sustainability movement while others feel alienated from it or skeptical of it?"; "Who takes action on behalf of the natural environment, under what circumstances, and why?"; and "How can we create contexts that promote true sustainability?" Psychology of Sustainable Behavior is a project-based class with a strong civic engagement component. Students will participate in three class projects: a self-change project (2.5 weeks), a community-based collaborative project (5 weeks), and a communication/education project (3 weeks). Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 for Psychology majors.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Climate change is no longer a distant, hypothetical threat.  Yet, though more than half of Americans are "concerned" or "alarmed" about global warming, few are taking significant personal action in response, and only a small minority are involved in civic action to address the issue. This course takes a broad psychological perspective on the questions, "Why are we not doing enough to address global climate change?"  and "What will catalyze the social movement necessary to address the issue?"  The class will explore psychological theories and studies that help explain why people respond to the climate crisis in the ways they do, and what psychological research tells us about how to shift that response.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

All readings and class taught in English; no pre-knowledge required. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) has been called the "savage anomaly" of the Enlightenment because his philosophy enables an alternative or 'hidden' modernity based on the interdependence of beings rather than their hierarchy. Ever more political theorists, environmentalists, and ecologists are turning to Spinoza's vision of a nonhierarchical union of nature and society that rejects anthropocentrism as the promise for a more equitable and sustainable life. In this course we shall focus on the foundation of Spinoza's unconventional thesis: his intertwined conceptions of the human being as part of nature-as opposed to the prevailing notion of the human as an autonomous "imperium" in, yet above, nature-and of society as a continuation of nature-as opposed to the dominant theories of the "social contract" that ground society on its break with, or repression of, nature (Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant). We shall examine Spinoza's entailed radical revision in understanding both the "political" and the "environment." Beyond Spinoza's Ethics and his Theologico-Political and Political treatises, we shall read major commentators on Spinoza's ethical and political theory and on his role in environmental ethics and Deep Ecology.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to outdoor education as an opportunity to promote social justice and environmental sustainability in a globalized world.  Informed by relevant philosophical, psychological, cultural and political-economic frameworks, in addition to critical issues in public education policy and practice, we will explore interdisciplinary approaches to outdoor environmental education appropriate for students across the K-12 continuum.  We will utilize the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (Ordway Field Station) as an outdoor classroom and will adapt curriculum from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other outdoor education organizations to assist elementary school teachers and students in fulfilling Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards. Early in the semester, all students will participate in a weekend retreat at the Ordway Field Station. Weekly lab sessions will include field days during which course members design and implement educational experiences for elementary school children at Ordway, small group work days for preparing field day lesson plans, trips to local outdoor environmental education sites within the Twin Cities, and other experiential learning opportunities.  Weekly seminar sessions incorporating readings, reflective writing, and individual and small group projects complement the experiential aspects of the course. As the semester progresses, each course member will develop a curricular unit aimed at teaching an important environmental issue to diverse adolescents attending urban public schools.  The curricular unit is a significant undertaking that provides students with the opportunity to synthesize all aspects of the course material in a creative, pragmatic and integrative manner.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to outdoor education as an opportunity to promote social justice and environmental sustainability in a globalized world.  Informed by relevant philosophical, psychological, cultural and political-economic frameworks, in addition to critical issues in public education policy and practice, we will explore interdisciplinary approaches to outdoor environmental education appropriate for students across the K-12 continuum.  We will utilize the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (Ordway Field Station) as an outdoor classroom and will adapt curriculum from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other outdoor education organizations to assist elementary school teachers and students in fulfilling Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards. Early in the semester, all students will participate in a weekend retreat at the Ordway Field Station. Weekly lab sessions will include field days during which course members design and implement educational experiences for elementary school children at Ordway, small group work days for preparing field day lesson plans, trips to local outdoor environmental education sites within the Twin Cities, and other experiential learning opportunities.  Weekly seminar sessions incorporating readings, reflective writing, and individual and small group projects complement the experiential aspects of the course. As the semester progresses, each course member will develop a curricular unit aimed at teaching an important environmental issue to diverse adolescents attending urban public schools.  The curricular unit is a significant undertaking that provides students with the opportunity to synthesize all aspects of the course material in a creative, pragmatic and integrative manner.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course is designed to be an introduction to the broad field of natural resource interpretation. This is an action-focused class meant for students interested in building skills related to group facilitation, communication, performing interpretive talks and walks focused upon cultural and natural resources, developing interpretive displays/messaging, and designing interpretive programs for a variety of audiences. The class will also cover the theories, values, and outcomes affiliated with providing group problem solving and interpretive experiences. Students will be introduced to Freeman Tilden’s 6 principles of interpretation and visit state interpretive sites and outdoor education centers to observe how practitioners in the field use Tilden’s principles to guide their work. There will be no quizzes or written exams in this course. Instead, students will be required to demonstrate their understanding of course material through homework assignments, in class activities, and through designing and implementing their own interpretive programs.

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Course Materials

No river looms larger in north American history than the Mississippi, which meanders within a couple miles of Macalester’s tree-lined campus. Flowing through the geographic heart of the continent, the Mississippi has shaped the region’s economic, social, political, and cultural history since before the U.S. existed. This course will examine the river’s environmental history – how the river’s physical form has changed and been changed over time, and what those changes have meant for people’s livelihoods and worldviews. We will dig into the geologic and geographic forces that shaped the river valley, Indigenous views of the river past and present, slavery and the commercialization and industrialization of the river, and 20th -century stories of agricultural development, pollution, flooding, dams and levees, and conservation. Using interdisciplinary historical tools, we’ll examine case studies from the river north and south, from Itasca to New Orleans, but with special attention to Minnesota and Midwest histories.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Asia and the Pacific Islands host more of the world's Indigenous people than any other continent -- roughly 260 million out of 370 million worldwide (70 percent). In addition, Indigenous people in Asia generally make up the continent’s “poorest of the poor,” facing systemic disadvantage including limited access to healthcare, education, land, capital, and labor, as well as weaker political representation. In this course, we examine the lived experience of indigenous people in the Asia-Pacific through three analytical frames: their relationship to the state and the global order, their relationship to territory and the environment, and challenges to cultural survival. Along the way, we discuss colonialism and settler colonialism, colonial and contemporary representations of indigenous people, the challenges to both cultural and political survival of indigenous people posed by state formation, the challenges of resource extraction and globalization, conservation as a form of colonialism, and the creation of an indigenous diaspora. The course includes guest speakers and field trips.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This studio class will focus theory, process, tools, and most importantly will give you a chance to flex some design muscles. We will investigate theories of design that play a large role in the designing of our exterior spaces — everything outside of buildings: from parks to urban streetscapes. Adding to that, the history of design thinking that created many styles and places that we still hold in high esteem, coupled with the major artistic movements that still shape our aesthetic preferences. The studio will also focus on the tools employed by historic designers, but especially dig into how contemporary designers approach the process of transforming spaces into memorable places. Finally, throughout the course we will discuss the tools and methods of spatial design and most of the assignments will give you a hands-on opportunity to design spaces using the tools we have explored as you will explore develop your own process for design. Landscape design professionals come from all backgrounds, so this studio requires no specific background in art, design, or plants. All are welcome!

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This studio class will focus theory, process, tools, and most importantly will give you a chance to flex some design muscles. We will investigate theories of design that play a large role in the designing of our exterior spaces — everything outside of buildings: from parks to urban streetscapes. Adding to that, the history of design thinking that created many styles and places that we still hold in high esteem, coupled with the major artistic movements that still shape our aesthetic preferences. The studio will also focus on the tools employed by historic designers, but especially dig into how contemporary designers approach the process of transforming spaces into memorable places. Finally, throughout the course we will discuss the tools and methods of spatial design and most of the assignments will give you a hands-on opportunity to design spaces using the tools we have explored as you will explore develop your own process for design. Landscape design professionals come from all backgrounds, so this studio requires no specific background in art, design, or plants. All are welcome!

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the theory and application of digital imagery data analysis in geographic research. It places a strong emphasis on developing both a conceptual understanding of fundamental remote sensing concepts and practical skills for analyzing human-environmental issues such as deforestation, urban expansion, or other changes in land surface across space or time. The focus is on the interpretation and applications of data from spaceborne systems (e.g. Landsat, Sentinel-2), but other sources of remote sensing data (e.g. unmanned aerial vehicles) will be introduced too. The course structure includes f lecture periods to explore specific remote sensing f concepts, hands-on labs that take students through the major mapping and analysis methods, and individual student projects. A basic understanding of geographic data is recommended to take this class. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

The negative impact of biological invasions is recognized as one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss, but are invasive species always bad? We will study how biological invasions happen, what makes invasive species so successful, and how their ecology and evolution shape their interactions with the ecosystems in which they become established. During the course, we will debunk some common misconceptions about invasion ecology and consider how invasive species are portrayed in the media. We will also explore the interplay between invasions and other global change factors such as urbanization, globalization of trade, and climate change. In the lab portion of this class, we will study first-hand how competitive interactions play out and how invasive species alter many biological communities around us. Prerequisite(s): BIOL/ENVI 170.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

In this course, we will explore a range of interdisciplinary research approaches and methods to both environmental justice and public humanities. Together, we will examine new directions and public projects in environmental humanities through key themes including environmental and climate justice, resource extraction, waste disposal, Indigenous sovereignty, imperialism, militarism and environmental racism. Students will also devote time to develop an original public humanities research project on social movement histories and environmental inequality. Open to all. This research-oriented seminar will fulfill the requirement for AMST Junior Seminar.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

The negative impact of biological invasions is recognized as one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss, but are invasive species always bad? We will study how biological invasions happen, what makes invasive species so successful, and how their ecology and evolution shape their interactions with the ecosystems in which they become established. During the course, we will debunk some common misconceptions about invasion ecology and consider how invasive species are portrayed in the media. We will also explore the interplay between invasions and other global change factors such as urbanization, globalization of trade, and climate change. In the lab portion of this class, we will study first-hand how competitive interactions play out and how invasive species alter many biological communities around us.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course is an intensive internship experience (8-10 hours/week) with an environmental organization or business in the Twin Cities metro region. An internship is an excellent way for students to apply knowledge learned in the classroom and laboratory, to learn more in an environmental area, and to explore career options. Required for Environmental Studies majors. It is recommended that students complete this course during the fall of their senior year. Graded S/SD/N only. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor required. Corequisite(s): ENVI 490

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Course Materials

This Senior capstone seminar complements the internship experience by bringing together students to discuss common experiences and reflect on professional development challenges. Weekly assignments include reflective writing, mentor profiles, mock job interviews and meetings with ES alums and community leaders. Prerequisite(s): For Environmental Studies majors only. Corequisite(s): ENVI 489

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials