ENV 295 - Special Topics in Environmental Studies

Planned Offering: Offered when interest is expressed and departmental resources permit.
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 2016, ENV 295: Special Topic: Ecology of Amazonia (3) . Second six weeks. Prerequisite: ENV 110 or BIOL 111. Origins of the Amazon Basin. The course covers geological and hydrological aspects of this huge basin, including basic concepts of biodiversity and its measures and concepts of “river continuum” and “flood pulse”. We also cover the origins and key factors of aquatic biodiversity in the Amazon basin and the natural and human threats to Amazonian biodiversity. Freitas.