Overview:  This course will examine the physical and human geographical aspects of global environmental change, focusing on natural variations of the environment over time,  the impact of human action on the Earth and its environmental systems, and the projection of future environmental changes. 

Syllabus, supplemental materials:  http://geography.uoregon.edu/bartlein/geog143/

Lecture outlines, reading assignments, lecture images, grades, etc.:  http://blackboard.uoregon.edu

Prerequisites:  GEOG 141, The Natural Environment, or instructor's consent

Goal of the course:  The course will introduce some of the major themes in global environmental change, a relatively new interdisciplinary field.  In particular the major components of the Earth system will be described, along with the ways they are linked and vary over time.  In addition to the basic concepts of environmental change, both natural and human-induced, the ways in which our understanding of those concepts have developed will also be discussed, as will the tools that are used for projecting future environmental changes.

Workload expectations:  Attendance at two lectures and one discussion/laboratory is required.  Lab exercises will generally have to be finished outside of the scheduled period.  In addition, about 4 hours per week will be required to complete the readings, and an additional 3 hours per week should be spent on browsing on-line resources such as links on the Current Weather & Climate web page (http://geography.uoregon.edu/weather/) not used in the lab exercises, climate and environmental change blogs, the NYTimes science section, and the news portions of Science and Nature.

Grading/assessment:  Two in-class exams (26% each; 7 May and 11 Jun ); plus 4 short quizzes (4% each) plus completion of all eight exercises (32%). No make-up exams or quizzes.  Do not miss class on the days quizzes are given.  With adequate documentation of the medical or other issue that created an unavoidable absence, scores from another exam or quiz may be substituted for a single missed exam or quiz.  The exam and quiz questions will consist of a mix of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, and will emphasize concepts (as opposed to factoids), and will also include questions aimed at your ability to synthesize material presented in the lectures, readings, and related web pages.

Lab/discussion sections:  The weekly lab and discussion sections will be focused mainly on "making sense" of the kinds of data and information that arise in studying global environmental change.  Although ultimately based on numerical data from satellites or from simulation models, most of the information that is actually analyzed exists in the form of maps or other graphical summaries.  Consequently, the lab exercises will focus on the interpretation of such summary information.  Exercises are due at 5pm on Mondays of the week following the assignment of the exercise.  One point will be deducted for each day the exercise is late.  All exercises must be completed in order to receive a passing grade for the course, even if the lateness of submission would result in a score of 0.

Texts:  All readings will be available as .pdfs online, and will mainly consist of chapters from the following books:

Climate Change 2007:  The Physical Science Basis http://www.ipcc.ch

One Planet Many People, Atlas of Our Changing Environment http://na.unep.net/OnePlanetManyPeople/

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx

AAAS Atlas of Population & Environment http://atlas.aaas.org/

Additional .pdfs will be made available through the Blackboard course page

How to deal with the readings:  All of the readings will be available as Adobe Acrobat .pdfs.  There are two reasons for this, both related to the pace and nature of research in global environmental change:  1) there is no single up-to-date textbook (and if one existed, it would cost a fortune owing to the density of color images in would require), and 2) most of research publications and assessments (e.g. from the IPCC) are available first (or only) as .pdfs.  Printing every single page in the .pdfs will not be feasible, and so it will be necessary to develop a personalized routine for reading the material online.

Collaboration:  Working together on exercises is a good thing, but you must submit your own work.  Similarly, using somebody else's distillation of notes to use as a study guide may be convenient, but it won't provide the same insight as organizing the material yourself.  UO's policy on academic dishonesty will be strictly enforced:  Please take a look at  http://studentlife.uoregon.edu/judicial/conduct/sai.htm

Other things:  The visual inspection and interpretation of the maps and images will be important, but accommodation for alternative methods of course-material access may be possible--please see me as soon as possible.  Also, the support provided by the following may by useful:

UO Campus Life Resources http://www.uoregon.edu/~stacaf/UGCampus.htm and
Academic Learning Services http://www.uoregon.edu/~als/index.html

The Internet and Global Change:  Anybody can set up a web site now, and make it look like it's an authoratative source of information on global change (and in particular, climate change), and make that site appear as though it were relatively "green" as opposed to, say, skeptical about human-induced climate change.  It would be a good thing learn how to deconstruct web pages by figuring out who the "owners" are, whether they have a particular orientation that may be based on a political perspective as opposed to a scientific one.

Schedule

Week	Date	Day	Topic
1	4-2	M	Introduction
	4-4	W	The Earth system
			Lab:  Introduction to the readings
2	4-9	M	Earth's climate history
	4-11	W	Atmospheric change -- Quiz 1
			Lab:  Recent climate trends
3	4-16	M	The IPCC Assessments
	4-18	W	An Inconvenient Truth
			Lab:  Reading the IPCC assessments
4	4-23	M	Projections of future climate
	4-25	W	Stratospheric ozone depletion -- Quiz 2
			Lab:  Greenhouse gas inventories
5	4-30	M	Air quality change
	5-2	W	Global ecology
			Lab:  Review
6	5-7	M	Exam
	5-9	W	Vegetation history and change
			Lab:  Global biomes
7	5-14	M	Desertification
	5-16	W	Forested lands -- Quiz 3
			Lab:  Global land-use and land cover patterns
8	5-21	M	Croplands and soils
	5-23	W	Water:  availability and quality
			Lab:  Population and the global environment
9	5-30	W	Extreme events -- Quiz 4
			Lab:  Global hydrology
10	6-4	M	The far future
	6-6	W	Responses to global environmental change
			Lab:  Review
	6-11	M	Exam (10:15am)