Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to NU BIO 450, 'Natural History of California'. This is a terminal class for seniors and upperclassmen in the B.S. Biology major program. Natural history is characterized by individual, direct observation of the natural world often made by scientists. As a result, expect to leverage many concepts from prior coursework as you proceed through this course. In this course, we will explore the important role of man's past and current presence in California's rich and diverse natural habitats.
This course will rely heavily on iNaturalist.org, a social network for naturalists, to enable the class to record and share observations. The course material will be broadly organized into three scientific fields that historically have relied heavily on the contributions of natural history: Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation Biology. As we cover each topic, we will explore examples of how natural history continues to contribute to each of these disciplines.
Some course documents, such as the course outline will be accessible via the NU Blackboard page for this class. Bb will also be utilized to record grades throughout the course, but will otherwise not be extensively utilized.
The structure of this class will be a combination of lectures and applied activities using iNaturalist. Lectures are intended to give a broad overview of the environmental sciences and their relationships to natural history, and will supplement your prior coursework. All activities outside of lecture including homework assignments and a final project will take place on the NU BIO 450 project page (in iNaturalist.org) which will record and share natural history observations with classmates and the broader iNaturalist community. It is my hope that by the end of this class you'll have a strong applied understanding of environmental sciences and the important role that natural history and citizen science are playing in moving these fields forward.
Comentarios
Agregar un comentario