Water comes to the American Southwest in cloudbursts and monsoons, in flash floods that turn dust to fertile soil overnight. For centuries human populations have adapted to episodic rainfall culturally and technologically, using water-sparing methods not unlike those seen in native plants and animals. In this course we will spend the first few weeks learning about the peoples, climates, and ecological communities along the Mexico/US border and up into the Mogollon highlands and mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, with emphasis on the Colorado River Basin.

This introductory course will explore the process of doing scientific research in a molecular biology lab. Students will learn numerous techniques in the lab, including DNA isolation, PCR, gel electrophoresis, restriction enzyme mapping, cloning, and basic microscopy. Additionally, we will investigate the historical and conceptual aspects of these approaches. Students will engage in semester-long research projects where they design and carryout experiments, collect and analyze data, and report their conclusions in written and oral formats.

NS 248 is an introduction to the principles and practice of epidemiology and the use of data in program planning and policy development. The course covers the major concepts usually found in a graduate-level introductory course in epidemiology: outbreak investigations, study design, measures of effect, internal and external validity, reliability, and causal inference. Assigned readings are drawn from a standard textbook and the primary literature.

This course extends the concepts, techniques and applications of an introductory calculus course. We'll detect periodicity in noisy data, and study functions of several variables, integration, differential equations, and the approximation of functions by polynomials. We'll continue the analysis of dynamical systems taking models from student selected primary literature on ecology, economics, epidemiology, and physics. We will finish with an introduction to the theory and applications of Fourier series and harmonic analysis. Computers and numerical methods will be used throughout.

This course develops skills for designing experiments and analyzing data using standard statistical methods. Work will include the use of some common computer packages, mainly Excel or Open Office, Minitab and R. We will use a standard textbook and also design and carry out data collection in class, with some data collected and analyzed by students on their own. We will also discuss examples of published research and relevant aspects of the philosophy of science.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are evolving computerized tools that greatly facilitate describing, modeling, and managing our natural resources. In this course, we will learn GIS tools, specifically ArcGIS and Google Earth, necessary to map and analyze the natural resources, focusing on the Hampshire College campus. We will learn about making and using maps, using technology ranging from counting footsteps to satellite navigation (Geographic Positioning Systems, GPS). We will learn how to create new GIS data as well as find appropriate existing data.

Even if we have answers for the basic questions raised by the problem of sustainability there are still many approaches to determining a proper course of action. The viewpoints of LCA, the "ecological footprint", and "Natural Capitalism" each provide a standard against which to measure any particular program of change or development. We are presently challenged to make policy judgments of vital importance, to develop technologies and systems that increase sustainability, and to design and present these things in ways that ensure widespread adoption.

Molecules which speed up specific chemical processes but remain unchanged are called catalysts. They play key roles wherever chemistry takes place, whether in the cell, the environment, or the manufacturing plant. Some catalysts accelerate reactions by almost 20 orders of magnitude, and many are perfectly selective for a single substrate molecule. Catalysts make life possible, and a handful have changed the way we live. This course will examine the principles of catalysis in chemical and biological systems.

This course is a broad introduction to the practices of sustainable agriculture and organic farming. It includes experience in the field, combined with study of the underlying science and technology of several key agricultural topics and methods, as well as some more economic/political aspects. We will focus on sustainable and/or organic methods that minimize the use of nonrenewable resources and the associated pros and cons.

In this self-directed course, each student (or group of students) will study a mathematical model that revolutionized biology. After selecting a topic, students will read the primary literature of the chosen model focusing not only on the mathematical and biological aspects of the model, but also on the historical context and long-term impact of the work. The students will then select and read current articles that reference the original models. In some cases, the students may want to expand or modify the model and explore the implications.