Environmental Biology is the study of our environment and human's interactions with it.
This course will help you better understand the systems and processes that support all life, including yours, on Planet Earth. Our basis for learning will be understanding the core issues regarding our environmental and the connections between these issues and our everyday lives. We will also use our study of environmental biology to learn how science works. Science is simply a formalized way of ''knowing'' that many of us frequently engage in without realizing that we are doing so. As Einstein said, ''The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.'' Physics and Reality, 1936
Topics we will cover include: human population dynamics; health & toxicology; food production; water resources; energy use, production, & conservation; global climate change; economics & policy issues concerning our environment; and the conservation and maintenance of biodiversity and earth's resources. We will look at these issues from the perspective of human activities and their impact on our home, Planet Earth. We will also examine the ways that each of us, in our everyday lives and lifestyle choices, can have a positive effect on our environment and the quality of life over the long term. Of course, there are also the associated philosophical and ethical considerations. This course is intended for all students regardless of major field of study.
Instead of learning a multitude of obscure yet important facts that would probably be forgotten as soon as the exam is over, our approach will be to understand the ''big picture''. We will not ignore all detail, instead, we will focus on understanding the details that enable us to understand the whole.
The course is designed with the goal of increasing your understanding and appreciation of our environment while helping you to further develop general critical thinking skills. The class will not be a series of lectures where I stand in front and speak while you furiously write down notes hoping you have accurately copied what I have said or what is on the board. Instead, we will do much of our learning in an interactive mode where students learn from each other in ''real time'' in class. I take this approach because most people learn more and retain it better when they learn in an active learning environment coupled with peer learning. This process works best when each of you come to class having done the assigned readings before class meets. The purpose of this approach is to assist you in developing skill in evaluating technical and scientific information as well as thinking about complex multidisciplinary issues. This will equip you with tools to help you be savvy and discerning information consumers in the face of the glut of ''information'' that is part of our daily lives. The result is that you will be better able to separate fact from opinion and therefore become better informed. Another goal of the course is to assist your development as self-sufficient scholars that know how to collect and evaluate the quality of information you find on any topic that you are interested in -- or perhaps not really interested in, but one that has been assigned.