2019-2020 University Catalog 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
2019-2020 University Catalog archived

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ENV 295 - Special Topics in Environmental Studies


Credits: 3


Prerequisites: ENV 110 or BIOL 111. This courses examines special topics in environmental studies, such as ecotourism, the environment and development, local environmental issues, values and the environment, global fisheries, global climate change, tropical deforestation and similar topics of importance, which could change from year to year. This is a research-intensive course where the student would be expected to write a significant paper, either individually or as part of a group, of sufficient quality to be made useful to the scholarly and policy communities. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Winter 2020, ENV 295A-01: Special Topics in Environmental Studies: Water Policy and Politics (3). Current dynamics of conflict over water resources, and their influence on local and international policy, politics, and economics. We discuss the legality of water rights trade, conflicts of agriculture and conservation, water pollution, and the Super-PAC solution. Students investigate the ecology of susceptibility of freshwater systems to biological invasions. And we study the way the global community tackles the refugee problem stemming from diminishing fresh water in the developing world. Students follow three major international case studies to guide our investigation of water resources: (1) water rights on the Colorado, (2) industry and pollution in the Great Lakes, and (3) desertification and refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bleicher.

Fall 2019, ENV 295A-01: Special Topics in Environmental Studies:Food, Drink, and the Holocene (3). Prerequisites: ENV 110, BIOL 111, or instructor consent. How can the lessons of the last 12,000 years of human history help us make our food systems more sustainable today? This course investigates the ways people eat and drink in the Holocene (approximately 10,000 BC to now) to understand how human-environment interactions have changed through time. Using approaches drawn from archaeology and history, students examine the foodways of past societies –like the Maya, Vikings, Aztecs, early Virginians, and more – and learn the complex stories of how and why some food systems work and why others collapse. Fisher.




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