(I loved Bernier's 1B03 since it's what got me into env sci stuff)
With Bernier taking charge, I'm sure it'll be completely different. I had it with Warren this year and here's how it went.
According to the avenue class list, we started with around 70ish people in the course and shortly after the midterm there were around 30ish people.
35% Labs (1 quiz @ 5%, 2 formal labs @ 15%)
30% Midterm
35% Exam
Dr. Warren is a prominent figure in the mining industry so she mostly focused her course on the processes involved in mining and remediation. Lectures consisted of her blasting through slides based on the textbook (which were simplified and good notes). At the beginning of the term, many of us would scramble to get the slides down since she didn't post them and would repeat "it's all in the textbook". Most of us just ended up bring our textbooks to follow along and jotting down diagrams she covered. (Oh yea, all the geochem textbooks were tagged as "old" at the tank.. but were all in pretty mint condition
)
Around once every 2 weeks, she would be unavailable for class for reasons such as attending mining conferences (?) in Alberta or meeting with the consulate general of South Africa. She had her TA's come in to talk about their research, the geochem field, and prep us for the labs.
The first "lab" was 5 mark unit conversion quiz. The second lab dealt with comparing acid mine drainage between sterile and non-sterile solutions. The third lab dealt with neutralizing agents and sulphate reducing bacteria. The last two labs required you to come in for two alternate weeks to record data. We would then have to post our data, along with other group's to get a collective data set for the entire lab section. The TA's (Amy & Kate) were really helpful in making sure we knew what we were doing and you could tell that they were really into it.
The midterm was what caused most people to drop. I found it hard to study since the textbook only provided answers for selected questions (less than only odds or evens). Although Dr. Warren provided us with a couple of question sets, answers would only be provided if you managed to book an appointment with her or get an email response. This led a lot of us to form study groups.. which helped.
I ended up with a 10 in the course (I'm attributing this to a 30/100 mark long answer I did incorrectly during the exam. I got most my marks from the formal labs so do well on those (if you have them!)
Overall I'd say it was a pretty cool course. It was interesting to hear the other side of the oil sands argument. (excuse any grammatical errors, I'd like to get back to Skyrim
)
