This course will explore environmental pollution problems covering four major areas: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the biosphere, and energy issues. Several topics, including acid rain; automobile emissions; ozone layer depletion; climate change; mercury, lead and cadmium poisoning; pesticides; solid waste disposal; and problems of noise and thermal pollution will be addressed. We will emphasize some of the environmental issues affecting our immediate community, as well as those in developing nations.

This course investigates the structure of a powerful intellectual influence of our times: modern theoretical physics. Using two-state systems including electron spin and photon polarization, we develop the actual quantum theory in its matrix mechanics form. That theory underlies our current understanding of atoms, particles, and virtually all physical processes: it is fundamental to all modern physics including Quantum Teleportation, Computation & Information, AND has important philosophical consequences as well.

The structures and systems of the Hampshire campus have both obvious and subtle effects on our lives as individuals and as a community. In addition, their design, construction, functioning, maintenance and eventual disposal have long-term effects on the environment and the local and global ecology. We will use these systems to examine a number of ways in which technological decisions can be evaluated in a larger context, and, in so doing, develop tools for evaluating proposals for "greening" our campus.

Did you ever wonder why Jewish grandmothers who make gefilte fish from Norwegian sturgeon so frequently are parasitized by tapeworms? Maybe not, but who gets parasitized, when, and by what is highly significant to understanding the history of humankind. In this seminar we will read and think about the failure of modern (Western) medicine to eliminate most of the tropical diseases of Homo sapiens. We will also introduce the workings of Hampshire College. We will read R.S. Desowitz's Federal Bodysnatchers and the New Guinea Virus (2002) and P.J.

This course looks at agriculture as a set of ecological systems and issues. It refers to ecology in both the sense of interactions between organisms (e.g., crops, pests, and predators) and their environment, and in the larger-scale sense of environmental impacts and related social and political issues. A broad range of topics will be covered, including pesticides and alternatives, soil fertility and erosion, the role of animals, genetically modified crops, biofuels, global vs. local trade and more.

Floods, droughts, and hurricanes have all been predicted to increase in response to climate change. How will these and other effects impact our access to freshwater? How will we adapt to these changing conditions? This class will cover a brief introduction to the science behind climate change predictions and look specifically at the impacts to the water cycle. We will also discuss how the ways in which we have changed the landscape affect our ability to respond to changes in water availability.

This course focuses on the science of human genetic and biological variation. How does variation come about in evolution? Which variations have adaptive and functional significance and which are "just differences"? What is the evolutionary explanation, distribution, and significance of human variation in, for example, sickle cell anemia, skin color and sports performance? How are individuals grouped, how are differences studied, and to what purpose?

Combining ideas, principles, and practices from horticulture, ecology and landscape design, we will develop and implement a sustainable landscape plan for part of the Hampshire College campus. We will first visit and come to understand several different natural plant communities in the Pioneer Valley and learn about native plants in the landscape from experts at Nasami Farm. We will learn how to identify herbs, vines, perennials, shrubs and trees, and how to place them with regard to soil, water, nutrients and canopy structure.

Students in this course will learn about the biological function of selected human organs and systems through the study of actual medical cases. Not all human systems will be covered, but students will gain a good understanding of how diseases affect the body and how they are diagnosed. Working in small teams, students will develop diagnoses for medical cases through reviewing descriptions of patient histories, physical exams, and laboratory findings.

This course is the second semester of second-year Spanish. Students enrolled should have taken IA/LS 201 or the equivalent and be able to use the present, future, preterit, imperfect tenses, command forms and present subjunctive with some fluency. This course will solidify grammatical structures of Spanish through activities that practice all four skill areas: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Attention will be given to more sophisticated use of the subjunctive and compound tenses.