HONOR 3245 - Global Environmental Change

We live in a rapidly changing world. Climate change, population growth, ecosystem disturbance, and transmissible diseases, for example, present global challenges that bridge traditional divides between the physical and social sciences. This honors course, Global Environmental Change, provides an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to global change phenomena. The course is targeted towards non-science majors. Complementary lectures and labs will be used to evaluate how the human and physical environments interact to create global changes. Lectures will convey the science behind different global change phenomena, with an emphasis on active discussions between students and the instructor. Labs will require students to test scientific models of global change phenomena, allowing them to gain insight on the abilities and limitations of modeling. Topics that will be covered in the course include an introduction to geospatial data and modeling, Earth’s energy budget and climates, global climate change and its impacts, population growth, migration and urbanization, ecosystem disturbance, water and energy resources, and natural hazards. Students will be evaluated using exams and lab exercises based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis. Students will also present a final project on a global environmental change phenomenon to the class.