Overview
 Fall 2009

Pathfinder 201
Land Dynamics and the Environment

Class Information

Name: Pathfinder 201
Instructor: Raymond Arvidson
Time: Tuesday/Thursday 10:00-11:30
Room: EPSc 282

Objectives

This three-credit course will use lectures, discussions, exercises, and field trips to introduce you to a systems approach for environmental sustainability. In a sustainable environment natural resources are used to help humans live and thrive, without degrading the environment. We will pursue how to maintain environmental sustainability in situations in which the environment changes naturally and due to anthropogenic causes.

Areas to be studied in depth include hydrologic systems and water use policies in the Southwest; biodiversity of the Ozarks; and the carbon cycle, greenhouse warming, and associated global changes.

What Is Expected Of The Students

By the end of the semester we expect you to understand that sustainable solutions to environmental problems and issues require:

  1. solid grounding in the physical and biochemical processes involved, including anthropogenic effects
  2. realization that decisions are made in political contexts and typically involve compromises to meet the desires of competing interests (i.e., the Iron Triangle)

Further, we expect you to have increased your abilities in:

  1. addressing problems from interdisciplinary perspectives
  2. understanding systems perspectives, including quantitative modeling of processes involved
  3. using information system technologies to conduct background research, to prepare papers and oral presentations, and to access and process remote sensing and other data using geographic information system approaches
  4. writing and speaking clearly and concisely

Grades

Final grade will be based on 25% each for three exams, 15% for exercises (also need to do exercises to do well on the exams), and 10% for active participation.