Syllabus

Instructor

Kurt Spreyer, Ph.D. Contact: kspreyer@berkeley.edu

Office hours: 229 Mulford Hall 4-6 PM Wednesday, or appointment

GSIs

  • Scott Schiffer (Head GSI)
    • cott_schiffer@berkeley.edu
  • BeatrizGuererro Auna
    • beatriz.guerrero@berkeley.edu
  • Lily McIver
    • cmaciver@berkeley.edu
  • Kashfia Nehrin
    • kashfia_nehrin@berkeley.edu
  • Noah Pitts
    • noahpitts@berkeley.edu
  • Alfredo Rivera
    • jalfredo_rivera@berkeley.edu
  • Andrew Salmon
    • andrewsalmon@berkeley.edu
  • Beatriz Stambuk-Torres
    • bstambuk@berkeley.edu
  • Kelsey Wilson
    • kelsey.wilson@berkeley.edu

Learning Objectives

This course is designed to facilitate students’ understanding of the following:

  • Relationships between natural resource management and race in the U.S.
  • Policy and ethical dimensions of natural resource management
  • Critical understanding of identity and power relations in the U.S.

Additionally, this course is designed to cultivate students’ interests and abilities in the following:

  • Holistic, systems-based, and multi-disciplinary approaches to complex phenomena
  • Critical thinking, reading and analysis
  • Short essay writing and group project work
  • Understanding one’s own experiences, roles and actions in society
  • Informed, critical, creative and self-reflective civic engagement
  • Relationships between natural resource management

Finally, this course offers students opportunities to pursue a range of learning experiences in keeping with the goals of the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Initiative, by integrating research, public engagement, and creativity in an interdisciplinary curriculum.

Course Requirements

The course entails reading, assignments, tests andclass participation. Come to lecture and section having completed assignments and reading, and ready to engage. Bring your intelligence, your curiosity, your creativity, and the hard work that got you here, and you are likely to learn a lot… and get an A.

Readings:

  • Course reader: The reader is available at Replica Digital Ink at 2138 Oxford Street. Alternatively, you can buy a used reader through the ESPM 50 Reader Exchange, to which you have access through bCourses. All readings on the syllabus without a url are included in the reader.
    • Those with a url are available online, and are not in the reader. To view this these, you may need access to the UCB library proxy server. For information, see: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/using-the-libraries/proxy-server
  • Readings on bCourses: Files>Course Reading Material contains pdfs of the following:
    • All readings listed on the syllabus with a url (also available online)
    • All Unit I (including those not available online)
    • All readings from past readers that are not available in the Spring’19 reader

Quizzes:

Complete at least 7 of 12 quizzes on reading assignments in the bCourses Quiz tool.

  • Number of quizzes: You may take up to 12 quizzes, and apply your 7 best scores.
  • Time limit: You have 20 minutes to complete each 10-question, multiple-choice quiz.
  • Grading: Each quiz is graded on a 10-point basis. 7/10 or better is a fine score.
  • Quiz content: Quizzes contain multiple-choice questions covering only material from the current week’s assigned readings (e.g., the week 4 quiz covers week 4 readings), and are designed to assess whether you have completed the readings. Do the readings, and you’ll do well. See the “Sample Quiz” in the Quiz tool on bCourses for a quiz content example.
  • When to take quizzes: Quizzes will be available on bCourses early in a given week, and must be completed by 10p the following Sunday.
  • How to take the quizzes: The quizzes are open book. However, you must take quizzes individually and may not share information about questions with other students until the quiz has been closed for the week. Please note that doing so will be considered a violation of the Code of Student Conduct.

Exams:

Exams cover lectures, readings, and points raised in discussion section.

  • Midterm: This exam includes a take-home component. A midterm review session will be held, time & loc TBA. If you have a significant conflict, and alternative exam time will be available.
  • Final: This take-home exam covers content from Units III and IV and concepts from the entire course.