GEOG 111-01 30282 |
Human Geography of Global Issues |
Days: M W F
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Time: 01:10 pm-02:10 pm
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Room: CARN 06A
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Instructor: Rupak Shrestha
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*First day attendance required*
Details
Human geographers have been at the forefront of studying a range of global issues, paying particular attention to the spatial organization of human activity and of people's relationships with their environment. Their work frequently highlights the interdependence between regions, as well as the uniqueness of specific places. This course examines the basic concepts and processes that shape human geography. Global and local patterns of population, migration, environmental resources, agriculture, economy and urbanization are surveyed and the factors influencing these patterns are discussed. Distinctions between the more developed (core) and the less developed (peripheral) regions of the world are highlighted and regional examples are used to illustrate geographic concepts. This course is an alternative to GEOG 113 - World Regional Geography: People, Places and Globalization. Students should take one course or the other as an introduction to the field or the major. (Students can also earn credit equivalent to GEOG 111 or GEOG 113 by scoring a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in Human Geography.)
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 113-01 30283 |
World Regional Geography: People, Places and Globalization |
Days: M W F
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Time: 10:50 am-11:50 am
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Room: CARN 06A
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Instructor: William Moseley
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*First day attendance required*
Details
It is crucial to understand the biophysical and cultural particularities of different world regions as well as the forces that bind them together. This course begins with an exploration of global flows and connections, and then takes us on a scholarly tour of the world, with stops in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Along the way we'll systematically investigate major human and physical geography themes such as population dynamics and migration, agricultural change, human-environment interactions, health and disease, economic change and development, urbanization, and cultural shifts. This course is an alternative to GEOG 111 - Human Geography of Global Issues. Students should take one course or the other as an introduction to the field or the major. (Students can also earn credit equivalent to this course or GEOG 111 by scoring a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement exam in Human Geography).
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 225-01 30284 |
Introduction to Geographic Information Systems |
Days: M W F
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Time: 09:40 am-10:40 am
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Room: CARN 107
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Instructor: Holly Barcus
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*Permission of instructor required; first day attendance required*
Details
This course provides an introduction to cartography, visualization, and analyses of geospatial data, as well as hands-on experience with geospatial technologies in the GIS laboratory. Students will learn the basics of mapping/cartography (e.g. scale, projections, map design) and Geographic Information Systems. Students will create maps with commonly used digital data (e.g., aerial photographs, census boundaries, digital elevation models, etc.), and master basic methods of spatial analyses. Both concepts and techniques will be taught in this course. Hands-on assignments include classification of demographic data and query/analysis of vector and raster data. One and one half laboratory hours per week required. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.
General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 225-L1 30725 |
Intro to GIS Lab |
Days: W
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Time: 10:50 am-12:20 pm
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Room: CARN 108
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Instructor: Ashley Nepp
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*Permission of instructor required; first day attendance required*
Details
This course provides an introduction to cartography, visualization, and analyses of geospatial data, as well as hands-on experience with geospatial technologies in the GIS laboratory. Students will learn the basics of mapping/cartography (e.g. scale, projections, map design) and Geographic Information Systems. Students will create maps with commonly used digital data (e.g., aerial photographs, census boundaries, digital elevation models, etc.), and master basic methods of spatial analyses. Both concepts and techniques will be taught in this course. Hands-on assignments include classification of demographic data and query/analysis of vector and raster data. One and one half laboratory hours per week required. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.
General Education Requirements:
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 225-L2 30726 |
Intro to GIS Lab |
Days: R
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Time: 09:40 am-11:10 am
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Room: CARN 108
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Instructor: Ashley Nepp
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*Permission of instructor required; first day attendance required*
Details
This course provides an introduction to cartography, visualization, and analyses of geospatial data, as well as hands-on experience with geospatial technologies in the GIS laboratory. Students will learn the basics of mapping/cartography (e.g. scale, projections, map design) and Geographic Information Systems. Students will create maps with commonly used digital data (e.g., aerial photographs, census boundaries, digital elevation models, etc.), and master basic methods of spatial analyses. Both concepts and techniques will be taught in this course. Hands-on assignments include classification of demographic data and query/analysis of vector and raster data. One and one half laboratory hours per week required. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.
General Education Requirements:
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 232-01 30285 |
People, Agriculture and the Environment |
Days: T R
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Time: 03:00 pm-04:30 pm
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Room: CARN 107
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Instructor: William Moseley
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with ENVI 232-01*
Details
This course introduces you to the study of human-environment interactions from a geographic perspective, with a special emphasis on food and agriculture. We examine environmental issues in a variety of geographic contexts (Global South and Global North) and the connections between environmental problems in different locations. Beyond agriculture, we also explore other sectoral issues in relation to farming and food security. These themes include: human population growth, consumption, biodiversity, climate change, and environmental health. We try 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, we not only explore a range of agricultural and environmental issues, but also grapple with theory and how this informs our understanding of the human-environment interface.
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 234-01 30714 |
Migration, Environment and Place Identity(ies): Exploring Geographies of Home, Mobility and Place |
Days: M W F
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Time: 12:00 pm-01:00 pm
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Room: CARN 105
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Instructor: Holly Barcus
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*First day attendance required*
Details
Migration, and more broadly, (im)mobilities literatures challenge us to connect broad scale migration flows with local places and construct from these linkages a notion of "home". Home is intimately connected to place and broadly conceptualized environments. In this course we will engage with and draw upon several overlapping literatures grounded in inter-disciplinary perspectives offered in migration studies. Course topics may include migration, diaspora, home, environment and environmental change, identity, place, belonging, as well as material expressions of these ideas, including art, architecture, symbolic places and monuments. Through an exploration of case studies both here in the Twin Cities as well as those drawn from around the world, this course offers an introduction to the basic principles and theories of migration and the ways in which migrants shape and transform place and are in turn shaped and transformed by their experience of place and home. Migration challenges us to consider different conceptualizations of home, belonging and identity. As such, this course offers an introduction to these concepts through discussion, field excursions and student-designed projects.
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 239-01 30287 |
Neotropical Landscapes |
Days: M W F
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Time: 09:40 am-10:40 am
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Room: CARN 05
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Instructor: Xavier Haro-Carrion
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with LATI 239-01*
Details
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 are home to immense biodiversity, including many endemic and threatened species, and provide critical services both locally and globally including water sources and climate mitigation. They are also home to various human populations and support their livelihoods. This course offers an introduction to these landscapes from a geographical perspective. It is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of the most important biophysical and social characteristics of the dominant landscapes of the Neotropics. Among others, these include tropical rain forests, Andean páramos, woodland savannas and tropical dry forests. For each of these landscapes, we will analyze the key climatological, biogeographical and ecological processes that define these areas as unique ecoregions or biomes. We will also study the peoples that live in them-indigenous communities, afro-descendants, and mestizo populations-and how they interact with their environment. Finally, we will study the main threats that these places face, including deforestation, afforestation, and climate change, and the key stakeholders driving, maintaining or reducing these processes.
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 244-01 30289 |
Geography of Asia: the Political Economy |
Days: T R
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Time: 01:20 pm-02:50 pm
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Room: CARN 107
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Instructor: I-Chun Catherine Chang
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with ASIA 244-01*
Details
Whether the twenty-first century will be dominated by the "rising Asia" has spurred recurring debates in policy and academic circles. But what is Asia? How can we understand this diverse region where more than half of the world's population resides? In this course, we will first deconstruct the idea of Asia as a cartographic entity to excavate the layered social-cultural meaning and geographical diversity of the "Asias." We will also place the "Asias" in a global context to reveal how contemporary Asia anchors the changing world political economy and cultural imaginations outside the West. We will begin with important theoretical debates on (East) Asian development that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s, including discussions about the colonial past, the path-dependency of development and uneven industrialization, regional disparities and mega-urbanization. We will then use these debates as the foundation to explore the contemporary globalizing Asia. What are the important connections between Asian countries, and with other parts of the world? What are the roles of the "Asias" in international governance and geo-politics? Can China replace the United States as the dominant geo-economic power? These are the questions we will explore in this course.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 250-01 30760 |
Race, Place and Space |
Days: M W F
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Time: 09:40 am-10:40 am
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Room: CARN 105
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Instructor: Jesse McClelland
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with AMST 250-01*
Details
From ongoing struggles for Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty to the moral panic about “critical race theory” in the public schools, there is little doubt about the ongoing significance of how “race” is lived and contested in the US. In this course, we will develop a specialized vocabulary for recognizing the interplay of race, place, and space. We will do this by exploring a variety of perspectives in Geography and related disciplines. Local site visits, guest speakers and student-led discussions will be key opportunities that help us to further situate racialization in the Twin Cities and the US in broader perspective.
General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 294-02 30293 |
Borders and Belonging |
Days: M W F
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Time: 10:50 am-11:50 am
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Room: CARN 05
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Instructor: Rupak Shrestha
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Details
This course provides an interdisciplinary material (texts and visuals) to understand how the ideas of borders and belonging are interconnected. While borders demarcate a particular national territory, it necessitates the construction of curated national imaginaries and forms of belonging. These practices of belonging and bordering simultaneously construct “the other” in immigration policies and national discourse. This course studies the political, social, economic, and affective underpinnings of processes that construct borders and belonging at multiple scales: from the local to the global. Course topics include borders, belonging, migration, sovereignty, territory, nationalism, and refugees.
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 294-04 30295 |
Indigenous Futures |
Days: T R
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Time: 03:00 pm-04:30 pm
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Room: CARN 105
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Instructor: Rupak Shrestha
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*Appropriate for First-Year students; cross-listed with ANTH 294-04*
Details
Indigenous Futures ruptures the notion that there is one linear future thinking and future making for all Indigenous communities globally. Through immersion in literature and media from Indigenous scholars, storytellers, photographers, filmmakers, and digital artists, students will engage in the multiple ways in which Indigenous communities regionally and globally imagine their futurities. Although the course content draws from material from the US and globally, the central way of learning is through engagement with Indigenous ways of being in the Twin Cities. Through digital projects, students will have opportunities to study and visualize how Indigenous peoples conceptualize their future by re-telling community histories of solidarity against state/police violence, navigating climate justice, and imagining new forms of belonging.
General Education Requirements:
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 320-01 30727 |
Asian Cities |
Days: M W F
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Time: 02:20 pm-03:20 pm
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Room: CARN 105
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Instructor: I-Chun Catherine Chang
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with ASIA 320-01*
Details
Since the last century, Asia has experienced rapid urbanization. It is now home to over half of the world's most populated cities. By 2010, the urban population in the Asia-Pacific region had surpassed the population of the United States and the European Union combined. In this course, we will focus on cities in East, Southeast and South Asia. We will first contextualize the rapid urbanization in the region's changing political economy, and identify urban issues that are unique to this region. We will further explore different theoretical approaches to understand Asian cities; several of them challenge mainstream urban theories rooted in the experiences of West European and North American cities. Upon the completion of this course, students will acquire substantive knowledge on contemporary trends of urban development in Asia, and develop familiarity with related ongoing theoretical debates. In addition, students will conduct individual research projects to develop a deeper and more concrete understanding of the contemporary urbanization processes in Asia.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 341-01 30296 |
City Life: Segregation, Integration, and Gentrification |
Days: T R
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Time: 01:20 pm-02:50 pm
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Room: THEATR 200
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Instructor: Daniel Trudeau
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with AMST 341-01*
Details
This course connects students with urban social geography, which studies the social and spatial dimensions of city life. In this course, we will explore some of the ways in which urban society is organized geographically. We will also consider how the spatial patterns of urban life influence public policy issues in the North American context. Topics covered in this course include causes of racial segregation, debates about gentrification, sustainable urban development, the transition to shared governance in cities, and the delivery of urban services that affect the welfare of urban populations. Students will learn current research, engage debates about critical urban issues, and learn techniques useful for analyzing spatial patterns in the urban landscape. Prerequisite(s): GEOG 241 or GEOG 261 or GEOG 262 or permission of instructor.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 362-01 30298 |
Remote Sensing of the Environment |
Days: T R
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Time: 09:40 am-11:10 am
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Room: CARN 109
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Instructor: Xavier Haro-Carrion
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*Permission of instructor required; first day attendance required*
Details
Remote Sensing of the Environment is designed to introduce the student to the theory and application of digital imagery data in geographical research. It emphasizes fundamental remote sensing concepts and utilizes remotely sensed data for analyzing human-environmental issues such as deforestation, reforestation, urban expansion, or other change in land surface across space or time. The focus of this course is on the interpretation and applications of data from spaceborne imaging systems (e.g. Landsat, Landsat, MODIS, Sentinel-2), but other sources of remote sensing data (e.g. unmanned aerial vehicles) will be introduced too. The course consists of lecture periods to provide a comprehensive understanding of concepts, labs that take you through the major mapping and analysis methods using the software Erdas Imagine, and student projects. A basic understanding of geographic data is necessary to take this class. Students can satisfy this requirement by completing Geog 225 (or similar) or by completing an asynchronous module provided by the instructor through Moodle prior to the beginning of class. Prerequisite(s): GEOG 225 or permission of instructor.
General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3
Distribution Requirements:
Course Materials
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GEOG 363-01 30299 |
Geography of Development and Underdevelopment |
Days: T R
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Time: 09:40 am-11:10 am
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Room: LIBR 250
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Instructor: William Moseley
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*First day attendance required*
Details
This course introduces students to the geographic study of development around the world, with a particular emphasis on the Global South. The geographic approach emphasizes: the highly uneven nature of development; processes that link and differentiate various areas of the world; connections between development and the natural resource base; and the power relations inherent in development discourse. The course has three main sections: an introduction to development theory; an investigation of various development themes; and an intense exploration of what works and what doesn't in development practice. While much of the development literature has focused on failure, a specific aim of this course will be to uncover and interrogate success stories.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 368-01 30300 |
Health GIS |
Days: T R
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Time: 01:20 pm-02:50 pm
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Room: CARN 109
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Instructor: Kelsey McDonald
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*Permission of instructor required; first day attendance required*
Details
This course builds on skills learned in the introductory Geographic Information Systems (GIS) course, focusing explicitly on geospatial techniques used for analyzing problems in public health. Through lectures, discussions, hands-on labs, and collaborative group work, students will learn to use advanced GIS tools to visualize and analyze public health issues, including: health disparities; neighborhood effects on health; spatial clustering of disease events, such as cancers; environmental health and environmental justice; infectious and vector-borne disease; and accessibility of populations to health care services. The course builds skills in spatial thinking, statistical and epidemiological reasoning, logical inference, critical use of data, geovisualization, and research project design. Students will be required to complete a final independent project on a topic of their choice. Laboratory work is required. Prerequisite(s): GEOG 225 and permission of instructor; completion of GEOG 256 and/or STAT 125 is highly encouraged before taking this course.
General Education Requirements:
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 375-01 30301 |
Rural Landscapes and Livelihoods |
Days: M W F
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Time: 01:10 pm-02:10 pm
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Room: CARN 105
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Instructor: Holly Barcus
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*First day attendance required; cross-listed with ENVI 375-01*
Details
This course introduces students to Rural Geography, a sub-discipline within Geography. Using a sustainable development framework this course emphasizes the linkages between human and physical landscapes through the evaluation of landuse and community change in rural areas throughout the US and other Global North countries. We will explore the implications of demographic (including migration and immigration), economic, cultural, and environmental changes for rural environs using several case studies from across the US and Western Europe, including an overnight field trip to northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Rural community strategies for adapting to and accommodating competing demands for water and landuse will be considered, including pressure for new housing developments, recreation opportunities (boating, fishing, hiking, biking), and conservation needs. Students will be exposed to theoretical and empirical approaches to rural development in different regional contexts, as well as problems associated with these development paradigms. We will explore the rapidly changing rural environments in a Global North context in order to deepen our understanding of the interconnectedness of human and physical systems more broadly.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 394-01 30759 |
Unearthing the Poor Farm: Local Geographies of Land, Law and Livelihood |
Days: T R
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Time: 09:40 am-11:10 am
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Room: MAIN 001
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Instructor: Jesse McClelland
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*Appropriate for First-Year students*
Details
Across more than 60 counties in Minnesota Territory / Minnesota State, poor farms were the birthplace, workplace and resting place for several thousand unpaid inmates. Poor farms may have been all but forgotten. But having grounded an early vision of welfare within the colonial land rush, poor farms can reveal much about the aims and contradictions of government in a settler colonial society. In this research-based course, we will unearth local poor farms through original collaborative research. We will draw on insights from labor history, food studies, legal geography, Indigenous studies and field trips. Students in the course will develop skills for archival research, direct observation, analysis, writing, design and public presentation.
General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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GEOG 494-01 30303 |
Our Changing Planet: a Seminar in Land Change Science |
Days: M W F
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Time: 03:30 pm-04:30 pm
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Room: CARN 05
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Instructor: Xavier Haro-Carrion
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*Permission of instructor required; first day attendance required*
Details
What are the human and environmental dynamics that produce changes in land use and land cover over time within a landscape, and the magnitude and location of these changes? This is the question we will attempt to answer in this seminar using theories, concepts and models of land change science (LCS; Turner et al. 2007). LCS is an interdisciplinary field concerned with improving the understanding of land use and land cover change dynamics and their relationships with global environmental change. We will review some general LCS literature, however, the bulk of the course will be dedicated to studying land change processes in the student's selected landscapes using available scientific literature and/or empirical analyses.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Distribution Requirements:
Social science
Course Materials
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