H90 Idiom of Science (course code 07098)
Topic for Spring quarter 1999:

The Science of
Biodiversity and Conservation

UCI Web Site of the Year!!!

Selected by UCI's Committee on Teaching

http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/H90/index.htm
Class Time: Tu, Th 2:00 - 3:20, RH 104
Instructor:  Dr. Peter J. Bryant  (x4714) (pjbryant@uci.edu).
Professor, Biological Sciences

Office hours by appointment.

The goal of this course is for students to understand the scientific approach to decision-making as it affects the conservation of biological diversity. Students will increase their ability to discriminate between good and bad science, and to understand the use and abuse of science in political decision making on environmental issues.

We will be using my ***hypertext book*** as the main source of basic information, and I will be assigning readings on the scientific background of the issues raised in the chapters of that book.

***this is a hypertext link*** - whenever you see something underlined in blue, click on it!  You'll be glad you did (most of the time!)

Copies of e:mails sent to the class list are at: http://eee.uci.edu/99s/w3m3/07098/

Qualified students can take this course on line for University of California credit! The cost of the course is US$ 425 for 4 credits. Enrollment begins now, and the course begins 6 April 1999.  The course code is 07098.

If you are interested, please read the instructions page.  If you have questions, please e:mail pjbryant@uci.edu

Research Project

As a class research project, we will be investigating what laws other countries have to protect endangered species and their habitats.  Since there are about 277 countries, each of the ~ 40 students in the class will be responsible for finding the information from about 7 countries.  We will do this in a series of steps, with due dates throughout the quarter.  A sign-up sheet was passed around in class, and the gaps have been filled in by random assignments to students who were not there or did not sign up.  You can find out which countries you got at Country Assignments and you can find lots of useful information on the multinational web sites.  Once you have determined the correct government address for each country, write a letter based on the suggested text.  Please turn in copies of all of your letters to Cameron Hoover on Thursday April 15.

The goal will be to produce a web page summarizing the environmental statistics and policies of each country.  The items in the web page will consist of the answers to the questions in the suggested text. Start with the country for which you have the best information.  Go to the template and save the file on a local drive, then add your information to the template using a web page editor (e.g. Netscape Composer, Microsoft Front Page, Internet Explorer).  If you have found links to good sources of information, put those links in the web page.  If you only have the information on paper, type the information directly into the web page or produce a secondary web page and then we can link to it from the primary one.  When you are done, send the new page to me, with a new name (important!), as an html file attached to an e:mail message.  Also print it out and hand it in to Cameron Hoover in class on Thursday May 6.

Useful sites for searching:

To find anything: Google or MetaCrawler
To search the Hypertext Book: Biodiversity and Conservation
To find where an organism fits into the scheme of things: The Tree of Life Home Page
Federal legislation: Thomas or Federal Register
California legislation
Conservation Issue Guides
Issue Guides written by the students in this course
Conservation Issue Papers written by the students in the Global Sustainability Senior Seminar

Some suggested reading:


Betrayal of Science and Reason : How Anti-Environment Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, by Paul and Anne Ehrlich
 
Date
Textbook chapters (click to go there!)
Apr 6 Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION, HISTORY OF LIFE
Apr 8 Chapter 2: THE AGE OF MAMMALS
Apr 13 Chapter 3: EXTINCTION AND DEPLETION FROM OVER-EXPLOITATION
Apr 15 Chapter 4: WHALES AND WHALING
Apr 20 Chapter 4 (continued): FISH AND FISHING
Apr 22 Chapter 5: OVEREXPLOITATION THREATENING LIVING SPECIES
Apr 27 Chapter 6: GLOBAL PATTERNS OF BIODIVERSITY
Apr 29 First Mid-term
May 4 Chapter 7: VALUES OF BIODIVERSITY
May 6 Chapter 8: ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTION
May 11 Chapter 9: EXOTIC INTRODUCTIONS
May 13 Chapter 10: FORESTS AND DEFORESTATION
May 18 Chapter 11: ENDANGERED AQUATIC HABITATS
May 20 Chapter 12: ISLANDS
May 25 Second Mid-term
May 27 Chapter 14: HABITAT POLLUTION
Jun 1 Mike Evans, Tree of Life Nursery, San Juan Capistrano.  Tour of a plant nursery supplying habitat restoration projects in Southern California.
Jun 3 Chapter 15: CAPTIVE BREEDING AND REINTRODUCTION
Jun 8 Chapter 16: HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH
Jun 10 Guest lecture: Marie Campbell, Sapphos Environmental, Inc.  "Practical Applications of Biodiversity and Conservation Planning in California"
Jun 17 (1:30-3:30) Final Exam 

Textbook

Hypertext Book in Biodiversity and Conservation

Grades

30% Research Project
20% First Mid-term
20% Second Mid-term
30% Final

Your Comments, Questions and Feedback are valued!

UCI h90 Students: You can send your questions and comments by e:mail to: pjbryant@uci.edu.

Instructors at other institutions: You are welcome to use any of the resources at this site in your teaching. Since these files are updated on an unpredicatable schedule, it is better to link to our site than to download the files. If you do use the site, we would be very grateful if you would provide us with the following information.

Students at other institutions: You are welcome to use any of the resources at this site in your studies. If you do use them, we would be very grateful if you would provide us with the following information.
 
Your name:
Your email address:
Are you the Instructor, teaching assistant, or a student?
Department:
Institution:
Course Name:
Course Number:
Semester or quarter offered:
Which of our resources did you use?
Any suggestions for improvement?

Dr. Peter J. Bryant
School of Biological Sciences
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92717, USA
Phone (949) 824-4714 Fax (949) 824-3571

Visitors since 24 March 1998: