Teaching

“Science is a cooperative enterprise, spanning the generations. It's the passing of a torch from teacher, to student, to teacher. A community of minds reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars.”

-Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Current Course Offerings in

Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (NREC)

Environmental Assessments

(NREC 4423, every spring semester)

This capstone course for upper-level undergraduates is designed to help students develop skills and explore tools for assessing environmental impacts resulting from planned management activities affecting natural resources. Students prepare Environmental Assessments (EAs) as a semester-long guided group project for this course.

Ecological Risk Assessment & Chemical Regulation

(NREC 4333 / 6333 fall semester - next offering in Fall 2025)

This course is designed to engage students in the various scientific, social, and regulatory aspects of ecological risk assessment of chemical contaminants in the environment. Students are expected to achieve a basic understanding of the sources and types of contaminants impacting ecological systems, the fate and transport of these contaminants in the environment, effects these contaminants in organisms, and how this information is synthesized for ecological risk assessment.

Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in Natural Resources

(NREC 4990 Special Topics)

This upper-level undergraduate course is designed to help students develop critical thinking skills relative to climate change vulnerabilities, adaptive measures, and the necessary elements of building resilient systems, including natural, political, societal and technological systems. Students will learn how to assess climate vulnerabilities
for natural resources in various areas of the globe and determine potential
mitigation measures, in addition to analyzing and discussing current events. The
course is designed to give students a broad and interdisciplinary framework for
defining, analyzing and addressing climate change challenges.

Biological Resources Management

(NREC 2990 Special Topics)

This course is designed for students to explore the relationships between environment, economy, culture and policy in the practice and implementation of biological resource utilization, management and conservation. Survey of U.S. and international policies and practices in biological resource use and biological diversity conservation.