Lecture 1

• brief introduction
  • purpose of the course - purpose of studying environmental science
  • format - give details at the end

   

• major concepts in the course
  • topic areas - look at the calendar
  • flow

   

• problems addressed in Environmental Science II
  • sustainability
    • define
    • describe with a systems diagram
  • human impacts on the environment
    • equation Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology
  • example problem
    • urbanization and wilderness

   

• problems, solutions, perspectives
  • does every problem have a solution? (discuss)
  • types of solutions (from Berry)
    • actually makes the problem worse
    • shifts the problem to somewhere else
    • solves within the context or "pattern" of the environment
  • multiple perspectives are required
    • ecological, social, economic
    • environmental, technological, social
• concepts in this course and how they are all related
  • concept map - relations between concepts (draw)
  • viewers - tools for looking at these problems
    • systems
    • individual needs and choices
    • multiple person decisions
    • institutions
  • use these multiple views to look for congruence or to make a collage
    • example: in ESR101 we looked at the tropical forests in Costa Rica
      • systems view - to describe how they could be sustained
      • network view - to show how biodiversity could be enhanced by connecting reserves
      • games view - to show how you could avoid a potentially big loss by investing now in multiple strategies
    • viewer collage - means overlapping but not the same information, doesn't have to converge
    • research collage - different methods and scales

   

• course details
  • calendar
  • syllabus
  • flexible format
  • case studies and viewers
  • work flow
  • student responsibility
  • the lab is critical
  • grading, late work, other nagging questions

   

• assignments for the orientation and unit 1