Influences of humans on the global environment have reached unprecedented levels, increasing the need for society to strive to live in a sustainable manner. Many issues facing the environment have a biological basis. Thus, an understanding of basic biology is necessary to understand and address many environmental issues. This course will cover the fundamental biology involved with five environmental issues at the global scale: climate change, excessive nutrient loading into ecosystems, agricultural production, chemical contaminants, and loss of biodiversity. Specific biological principles to be covered include energy and nutrient mass balance by organisms and ecosystems, homeostasis and organismal physiology, and population dynamics and conservation biology. Prerequisite: Completion of BIOL 207 or BIOL 208 or any 100 level GEOL or CHEM 112 or CHEM 115 or permission of the instructor.

This course explores methods of solving environmental problems. These problems are by nature, interdisciplinary and are rarely addressed in a substantive fashion in traditional science textbooks. In this course, students and faculty work together to develop a working model of a critical earth system or biogeochemical cycle (i.e. the carbon or nitrogen cycle), and learn how to make calculations of human-induced changes to that system. Students from all concentrations of the environmental science major will work together on this interdisciplinary research project using modeling and systems analysis software to more fully understand specific environments and the quantitative methods of assessing challenges to those environments. This course should be taken by all ESCI students during their junior year. Four laboratory hours per week. Prerequisite: BIOL 209 or permission of instructor.

This course explores methods of solving environmental problems. These problems are by nature, interdisciplinary and are rarely addressed in a substantive fashion in traditional science textbooks. In this course, students and faculty work together to develop a working model of a critical earth system or biogeochemical cycle (i.e. the carbon or nitrogen cycle), and learn how to make calculations of human-induced changes to that system. Students from all concentrations of the environmental science major will work together on this interdisciplinary research project using modeling and systems analysis software to more fully understand specific environments and the quantitative methods of assessing challenges to those environments. This course should be taken by all ESCI students during their junior year. Four laboratory hours per week. Prerequisite: BIOL 209 or permission of instructor.

These interdisciplinary seminars are intended to develop integrating insights through an analysis of topics chosen from different disciplines. Often they are taught by two faculty members or by a visiting lecturer who holds one of the endowed chairs at the university.