Geography for Environmental Studies Majors

GEOG 3412 Conservation Practice and Resource Management
Urban Systems: Design, Management, Resilience: Through the lens of Resilience. This course looks at the nexus represented by urban settlements, where the demand for productive energy, water, and food systems come together in support of human endeavors. Through lectures by the instructor and guest professionals, discussion, and exercises, students will explore the form and function of different urban systems.

GEOG 3422 Political Ecology 
Political Ecology is a dynamic, interdisciplinary subfield that spans geography, environmental studies, anthropology, and sociology. It provides tools for understanding the links between people, the environment, and global political economic processes and focuses on the politics of resource use and the human relationship with nature, where “politics” is very broadly defined. The class will cover diverse regional and topical foci including the politics of wildlife management in Tanzania, ranching in the Western US, and irrigation politics in Egypt.

GEOG 3511 Introduction to Hydrology
This course is about learning both the principles of hydrology as well as the techniques that can be used to solve hydrologic problems. In practice, hydrologists have to quantify rates at which water is exchanged between the atmosphere, land surface, and the oceans. This often involves processing data and solving sets of equations. It’s fairly easy to lose sight of the conceptual part of the problem once you focus on techniques. Thus, one of our other goals is to give you a balanced view of hydrology--one that includes a description of the physical processes as well as a coherent presentation of the theories and techniques that are used in practice.

GEOG 3682 Geography of International Development
What is the “developing world”? What countries, people, histories, and processes are included in “the Global South”? We will explore the power-knowledge relations inherent in defining development, and in understanding poverty and inequality more broadly. Through lectures, readings, films, and class discussions, we will think critically about past, present, and proposed future development interventions, as well as the construction of categories such as “developing countries,” “poverty,” and “the Global South.” We will also explore how development processes are linked to political, economic, and policy changes in North America and Europe.

GEOG 3822 Geography of China
China is one of the fastest changing countries on earth. With hundreds of new cities under construction, rapidly accumulating wealth among the middle and upper classes, a precarious environment and resource-base, and rising geopolitical ambitions, understanding a changing China is more important now than ever before. Yet as China’s influence grows, it seems to become more misunderstood than ever. This course aims to explore China’s changes, as well as dispel common myths about contemporary China, through the lens of human geography. We will explore China’s diverse environmental and cultural landscapes, its historical geography, and the challenges of rural development, urbanization, territorial sovereignty, energy, environment, and climate change.

GEOG 3832 Geographies of South Asia
This course will examine the Geographies of South Asia through four interrelated themes: Territory, Trade, Transportation, and Tributaries. Territory covers the physical geographic characteristics along with social and political histories. Trade focuses on economic geographies prior to, during, and after colonization. Transportation examines the changing geographies of mobility in South Asia from roads, railroads, and airports. Tributaries address the politics of water resources among nations in South Asia and the social/cultural significance of water bodies. We will also investigate gender relations as a lens onto South Asia’s diverse cultures and identities. We will focus on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

GEOG 4100 Special Topics in Geography: Earth Analytics
This class will introduce students to major unanswered questions in Earth science and to the analytical tools necessary to undertake exploration of ‘big data’ from a suite of sensors. It aligns with Earth Lab, a new initiative of the university’s Grand Challenge efforts and offers students a unique opportunity to take part in this multi- disciplinary endeavor. Students will choose a topic area of interest to explore throughout the semester, producing a final paper or project on a selected Earth system science problem.

GEOG 4120 Special Topics in Geography: Climate Change and Health
Climate change is projected to alter the physical environment in ways that will affect human health globally, regionally and locally. The choices that society makes to respond to climate change also have health implications. The course will explore the scientific evidence to date related to the health impacts related to changing climate. This course is an ideal course for students from a variety of backgrounds as we will cover some basics of both climate science before diving into the variety of epidemiological, risk assessment, and statistical methods used to understand the impacts of climate change on health locally, regionally, and globally. The public health implications, positive and negative, of efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change will also be elaborated, including discussions of ethical, political, and economic aspects of these efforts.

GEOG 4201 Biometeorology
Those with an interest in exploring how weather affects life from a quantitative perspective will enjoy this course. We will explore how the atmosphere affects plants, animals, and people. Topics ranging from water flow through plants to heatstroke and windchill’s effects will be covered. Basic high school level mathematical skills are required.

GEOG 4371 Forest Geography: Principles and Dynamics
Are you interested in forest ecology and in getting hands-on field experience for a future career in the environment? Have you ever wondered how trees grow so large and live so long? Are you curious about how disturbances such as bark beetles and fire impact our Colorado forests? If you answered yes, then you should register for Forest Geography.

GEOG 4742 Topics in Environment and Society: Geographies of Food & Agriculture
Audrey Richards, the great British anthropologist, once pointed out that the need to eat is the most basic and important of all human drives. We need food more frequently and more urgently than we need sex. The central place of food in our lives has made food one of the major foci of human existence. How we grow, process, distribute, and consume our food often defines us as a society. In our society, the food system has become the target of enormous critique in the last ten years, and also enormous innovation. How does what we eat define us? What does it mean to eat food made in factories and advertised on television, or to seek out "fresh," local or organic food? How do we use food to define ourselves as men and women, as Americans or punks, or Chinese, as children or adults? What does it mean to eat too much, or too little, and how does it define us as social beings? These are the key questions we'll be asking in this course. This course approaches food from two perspectives. The first is the political economy of food. We will look at food as a commodity, and study where it comes from, how it connects members of different societies and social groups as it travels along the commodity chain, and how it creates social and geopolitical inequalities. We will also study food as culture, including the symbolic meanings of different foods in various world cultures, the role of food in defining gender, national identity, and social class. We'll look at food, memory and place, the relationship between food spaces and gender/race, and the role of food in transnational culture.