Over the past 20 years, Massachusetts has evolved as a leader in clean energy policy, which has led to market development, job and economic growth, and reductions in greenhouse gas and other emissions. This course will provide direct insights into the brief history of these policy developments, including policy objectives, legislative and regulatory roles, tradeoffs of costs and benefits, the use of analytical methods to establish program design, and stakeholder perspectives and engagement.

The goals of this course are to teach you basic GIS concepts such as spatial data sources and structures, projections and coordinate systems, geospatial analysis, cartographic modeling, and the integration of remote sensing and GIS. By the end of the course, students will be proficient in ESRI ArcGIS software.

Students in WebGIS will explore web-based applications in geographic information science. This course will focus on hands-on practice using and building web-based mapping and analysis platforms, including Google Maps, ArcGIS Online, Leaflet, and Open Street Map. Along with conceptual discussion of how the internet, web servers and cloud-based GIS services function, students will create and host web services relevant to their coursework, research, or professional goals.

Optional lab for students enrolled in NRC 197FF.

This introductory statistics course aims to provide students interested in ecology with a supportive, encouraging and comfortable environment for developing a sound knowledge of core statistical concepts in ecology. Ecology, the study of the relationships between organisms to one another and their environment, is a discipline concerned with quantifying the relationships we observe in nature. The objective of the course is to demystify statistics and help develop the basic level of understanding that all future ecologists should possess.

Project-based course in which students will work on a semester-long applied research project that analyzes various current systems in western Massachusetts (energy, transportation, agriculture), and identify practical solutions that move towards sustainability. Students identify unique research areas, develop methods and collect data, and analyze and present findings in a report. This course will satisfy the Integrative Experience requirement for BS-NRC and BS-EnvSci majors.

This class will provide students with an understanding of the major processes and influences of forest ecosystems and major conservation issues which threaten them. Focus is on northeast forests.

Students will work in teams to research and develop solutions to the sustainable challenges facing our society. They will collaborate to investigate, critically evaluate, effectively communicate, and reflect on the multifaceted challenges associated with addressing sustainable resource use, water, food, energy, transportation, waste management, and climate change.