BIOL 1103 - Environmental Science Lecture

1. Demonstrate an understanding of human influences on the environment and steps that can be taken to achieve sustainability while recognizing its social and ethical impacts.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of science as a process, as introduced in a lab-like experience.
3. Establish an understanding of the basic structure and function of various natural ecosystems and of human adaptive strategies within them.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of patterns and interrelationships of bio-physical and socio-cultural systems.
5. Describe the basic institutional arrangements with the changing environmental and natural resource challenges we are facing.
6. Evaluate critically environmental and natural resource issues while demonstrating an understanding about the interrelationships, ecosystems, and institutions involved within them.
7. Establish and defend the actions students can take on environmental issues.
8. Demonstrate an understanding of major areas of course content.

1. Ecosystem structure and function, including:
   • the process of energy flow
   • the process of material cycling
   • population dynamics
2. Nature of biological communities, including:
   • the significance of different species interactions
   • the nature of ecological succession
   • the concept of biomes
3. Application of evaluative thinking in classroom studies, including:
   • hypothesis formation and the objective collection and evaluation of information
   • objective means of evaluating claims and positions
4. Economically and ecologically important resources, including:
   • renewable resources
   • nonrenewable resources
   • intangible resources
5. Evaluate and describe significant environmental dilemmas associated with activities of human societies, including:
   • the consequences of continued exponential growth of human populations
   • the causes and impacts of global climate change
   • ecosystem destruction and the impact upon the inhabitants of these areas
   • the loss of biological diversity
   • defining and defending a reasoned personal position on how to contend with the above problems
6. Describe the concept of sustainablility, including:
   • identification of both sustainable and non-sustainable practices
   • the economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability
   • discussing sustainable development that values future inhabitants’ cultures
7. Describe the options for effecting change in our society, including:
   • individuals and group actions that includes all ethnic, cultural, and racial backgrounds
   • the role of government and the political system
   • the role of non-governmental agencies
8. Explain the concept of environmental ethics, including:
   • comparing and contrasting the world views of indigenous peoples with the dominant world view of society today
   • racial, cultural, and intergenerational justice
   • identifying values and precepts that would be compatible with an ethic that upholds environmental integrity.
9. Describe the impacts of environmental justice including:
   • an awareness that racial and ethical minorities and/or people with lower economic status have been disproportionally exposed to environmental hazards
   • the importance of actions that demonstrates that our society’s domain of ethical concern has expanded to include all people regardless of racial or economic status