This course will explore the historical, political, economic, social, and cultural contexts in which human-environment interactions occur. We will cover critical topics and trends in the field of political ecology, from its early manifestations to more recent expansions. Using case studies from the global south and north, we will discuss factors that shape social and environmental change across scales from the personal to the global, and we will examine the role of gender, race, class, and power in struggles over resources.

Theoretical analysis of consumer and firm behavior, the role of prices in an economic system with various market structures, interrelationships of product and factor markets in a general equilibrium model, and the implications of the price system for resource allocation and economic welfare.

Earth's landscapes have changed dramatically over the planet's long history. In this course we tour North America and explore the origin and anatomy of its landscapes, including national parks and monuments. We also consider how geologic setting or physical environment has influenced human exploration and settlement of the continent.

An introduction to reading and writing about nature, this seminar will attempt an exchange across distinct approaches to observing and describing the world around us. Do lenses of culture, discipline, and gender determine how we see and experience nature, environment, and place? Course work will include reading such authors as N. Scott Momaday, Henry David Thoreau, bell hooks, Leslie Marmon Silko, Mary Oliver, Terry Tempest Williams, Wendell Berry, and Annie Dillard; field trips; and writing assignments--weekly field notes and journals, analytical papers, and personal essays.

The course is designed for upper level students interested in conducting independent or honors thesis qualitative research on environmental issues. We will discuss the logic of qualitative social research and examine a range of methods, considering the specific advantages (and limitations) of different techniques. Students will also discuss ethical issues, including the challenges of conducting research in cross-cultural settings, and they will prepare institutional review board proposals.

This is the capstone course of the environmental studies major. The course explores linkages among the diversity of disciplines that contribute to the environmental studies major, illustrates how these disciplines that contribute to the environmental studies major are used in environmental decision making, enables students to inform one another's roles as environmentalists, and provides students with opportunities to develop individual and cooperative projects.

A study of micro-economic development topics related to how households in lower-income countries consume and produce food. Topics include the causes and consequences of hunger and malnutrition, the agricultural household model, household-level food production and demand, intra-household allocation and bargaining, human and social capital investments and their impacts on food production and consumption, land rights and land use, child labor, and risk, credit and insurance markets used by agricultural households.

This is the capstone course of the environmental studies major. The course explores linkages among the diversity of disciplines that contribute to the environmental studies major, illustrates how these disciplines that contribute to the environmental studies major are used in environmental decision making, enables students to inform one another's roles as environmentalists, and provides students with opportunities to develop individual and cooperative projects.

An investigation of the economic foundations for investment, financing, and related decisions in corporations. Topics include capital markets and institutions; analysis of financial statements; sources and uses of funds; capital budgeting and risk; cost of capital; portfolio theory; the impact of corporate decisions on the economy. Some attention given to recent developments in the stock market, in the merger movement, and in international finance. See http://www.financeclass.us for a more detailed description.

A study of statistical methods applied to economic and social data. Measures of central tendency and dispersion, point and interval estimation, hypothesis testing, simple correlation, and simple and multiple regression analysis.