Biology - Winter 1998

This course deals with environmental science and related policy issues. It is designed for the student with little or no scientific background. The purpose of the course is to proved such students with the necessary informational tools to understand the global environmental crisis and make informed decisions about competing policies designed to deal with that crisis.

Specific subjects covered include the environmental revolution, principles of ecology, population biology, food resources and pesticides, the oceans, forests, biodiversity, fresh water, the atmosphere, ozone and global warming, energy and energy policy, and the nature of "sustainable development."

The course consists of reading, lectures and a collection of commercially produced videotapes that accompany lectures. The videotapes, which can be viewed outside of lecture in the McHenry Learning Laboratory, are optional. They illustrate vividly many of the main themes of lecture At the same time, they provide an opportunity for extra credit, which significantly enhance student evaluations.

Students are evaluated on the basis of their performance on three objective midterm examinations, based on reading from the textbook, Environmental Science, and lectures. Extra credit is assigned for watching videos, as noted above. There are no papers or other assignments.

This class is open to all students from all disciplines, carries no prerequisites, and satisfies the natural science requirement of the liberal arts degree.

Revised 7/12/04.