[moops]

This course examines the influence of long-term of natural and human-induced environmental crises on human societies. It is a new course created in 2008-2009 by Dr. Scott Martin.

Mark Breakdown:

Midterm Test - 20%
This year it was a combination of multiple choice and true and false questions. Our class told him that we didn't like it that way so he was thinking of adding short answer questions.

Essay Proposal - 10% and Essay - 20% and Group Presentation - 20%
Each group of about 4 people picked a type of environmental crisis, like deforestation and had to find an ancient example and a more contemporary example. Then each person looks at the cases focusing on different aspects like technology or demographics. Each person writes their own essay proposal and essay but they put all their information together for the group presentation.

Final Exam - 30%
This had a combination of multiple choice, true and false and long and short answers.

There is no textbook but we did get custom courseware. The courseware had a collection of journal articles in it. Each lecture focused on one or two of the articles.

This course is easy to do well in if you take the time to either attend lectures or read the custom courseware. I suggest attending lectures because there is a lot of information in the courseware that is not important. It's easier to listen to the lectures and look over the slides.

Dr. Martin is a great prof. He usually posts his lecture slides up after the lecture but I didn't find that a big deal. We also watched quite a few films on topics like Easter Island.

Also, the group project sounds difficult but really wasn't. I had a great group to work with so maybe that made it better. Topics were varied and we had tsunamis, disease, volcanoes etc.

Overall, I'd recommend this course to anyone who is interested in environmental crises. It's interesting to learn how small things we do can have great longterm effects.