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Populations and Land Use:

Ecological Concepts for Policymaking

ENV U6110

Summer 2005: June 3-Aug 19

Lectures: Friday, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Pre-Lab: Friday, 1-2 PM

Lab A: Friday, 2-4 PM

Lab B: Friday, 4-6 PM

 

Instructors:

Kate McFadden

Adjunct Instructor (Populations)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

1315 East West Highway,

Silver Spring, MD

Tel: (301) 713-2465 x198

kwm6@columbia.edu

Office hours: by appointment

Teaching Assistants:

James Connolly: jjc2119@columbia.edu

Miranda Mockrin: mhm2004@columbia.edu

Office Address: 1305 International Affairs Building

Office Hours: To be determined

 

 

Course Outline

Objective

This course will serve as an introduction to the applied science of maintaining the earth's biological diversity, its landscapes, and wilderness. It is targeted at entry-level Master's students. The course will focus on the biological principles relevant to the conservation of biodiversity at the genetic, population, and community and landscape levels. Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of ecology and biological conservation, some of the social, philosophical, and economic dimensions of biological conservation will also be addressed. Our focus will be on applications and problem-solving in conservation biology. Basic and advanced ecology and evolutionary processes will also be discussed. Students will gain a basic, practical understanding of GIS.

 

The specific objectives of the course are:

·       To define an interdisciplinary approach to address environmental problems and conservation issues.

·       An understanding of the ways in which biology can contribute to the solution of the kinds of conservation problems now (or soon to be) facing human society.

·       To develop skills needed to recognize and analyze the relationships among the scientific, technological, societal and economic issues that shape environmental research and decision-making.

·       To prepare environmental management and policy professionals to use research in a data based decision-making process that is firmly grounded in current scientific knowledge and methodology.

 

Course Structure:

Each section of the course includes the examination of key questions and concepts that will be illustrated by lectures, class discussion, required and supplemental readings, and associated websites.

 

Course lectures intend to present a broad overview of the issues in conservation biology affecting populations and the landscape. I encourage individuals in class to contribute to discussions in the lecture period. Students will be expected to do the assigned reading before class (excluding the synthesis notes which will be available online at Courseworks after each lecture) and be prepared to discuss the articles in class. The class will meet for one lecture period (2.5 hrs) and one lab (2 hrs) per week. The group will be divided into two sections for the afternoon labs (2-4 PM and 4-6 PM) to make the learning environment more accessible to all.

 

Readings and Text:

The principal text for this course is "Principles of Conservation Biology" by Meffe and Carroll, 2nd edition (Sinauer, 1997). You can purchase textbooks online or in Columbia bookstore. Scientific articles are available either online (if they are not copyright protected) or on the CourseWorks website (under Class Files/Shared Files), or the citation is listed and you may download them individually. Synthesis notes which summarize all lecture material, and often contain supplemental material, are available after most (but not all) lectures online at Courseworks: (https://courseworks.columbia.edu/), also found in the shared files folder.

 

Grades will be based on the following:

The course will consist of lectures and discussion/labs once a week, with grading based on participation in the debates, papers, and general classroom participation, including attendance.

 

Article Review (15%): (no more than 2 pages). Students will be expected to do a significant amount of reading for the course and to contribute to discussions on readings. Most weeks, a number of required readings will be assigned. Every few weeks, I will select two readings from these and ask you to write a two-page review of one of these papers. The purpose of these exercises is to hone your close reading of the scientific literature and develop your critical thinking skills. Peer review is a core part of the structure of scientific community, and a two-page review (while longer than most peer reviews) is a good length to master. In these reviews, please provide: a) one paragraph summary; b) discussion of critical strengths; c) discussion of critical weaknesses. I anticipate the format to be that of a scientific narrative with transitions between sections, NOT bullets or disconnected sections under headings.

 

Group Project (20%): Groups of up to five students will explore a geographic area of the world, working throughout the semester to summarize the status and importance of that region: what is the biodiversity of that region; why is the biodiversity important (from different stakeholder perspectives); and what threatens the biodiversity of that region. Use relevant lecture material &/or supplement your knowledge using scientific literature or web searches (web searches alone are not sufficient). Your group paper will include three sections: a biodiversity summary, stakeholder summary, and threats summary. Specific details on this project are available under the ‘Assignments’ section of Courseworks.

 

Your portfolio of summaries will be collected in class on August 5th, late papers will be penalized. Group members will prepare a 10-minute presentation to the class summarizing the main findings of the semester – what is the biodiversity of the region, why is it important, and what threatens it.


Class Participation and Questions on Readings (5%): Attendance is not mandatory, but to do well in this course you should expect to attend class and read the background material in the text. Since part of this course will consist of class discussion, and since some of the labs will depend upon everyone’s participation, my subjective evaluation of your participation (including attendance, obviously) will account for 5% of your grade. You should come to class every day having read the material to be discussed or having done the assignment for lab and be prepared to contribute to the discussion of it. Each week students will prepare two questions for discussion based on the readings and post those questions on the discussion section of CourseWorks by the evening prior to the class. If there is a problem posting questions online, they should be submitted via email to the TA’s. Questions submitted on Monday AM will not be accepted. Questions should be designed to elicit discussion, comparing and contrasting or synthesizing results from different readings. Students will be asked to share either their own question posted on Courseworks, or their favorite question (which can be posted by others) during class discussions on readings.

 

Debates (25%): The last class meeting will be devoted to formal debates on topics that are selected at the beginning of the semester. You will have almost the whole semester to prepare for your debate, and my intention is that you delve deeply into the literature on your topic as part of that preparation. Since many debate topics will have economic, sociological, political ramifications in addition to biological ones, I’ll expect you to delve into those as well. A total of 4-6 students will be assigned to each debate, but you won’t know which side you’ll be arguing for until the actual day of the debate. Thus, you will have to prepare adequately to argue either side! To help prepare in a timely manner, you’ll be required to write a 10 pages (or so, double spaced) essay presenting both sides of the resolution. This essay will be due for everyone on the last day of class. Here again, you’ll need to prepare not just your written essay, but also to be prepared to make a brief oral statement of your side’s position during the debate. The structure of the debate and potential debate topics can be found under “Assignments” in Courseworks.

 

Labs (35%): Approximately half the labs require some computer simulations and GIS related exercises, while the other half are ecological calculative exercises based on data sets collected elsewhere, etc. You should also be aware that some lab activities might require out-of-class time. Please bring a calculator to all labs.

 

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