Kelley A. Crews

The class is an applied, intensive computer- and field-based course in landscape assessment leveraging the spatial sciences, including but not limited to fieldwork (e.g., vegetation transects or Global Positioning Systems) and GIS / remote sensing / pattern analysis / spatial analysis.

Typically one-half of each week's course time will be allocated to learning standard protocols and supporting theory with the other half spent performing computer- or field-based analysis. Substantial additional lab hours will be required outside of class for successful completion of labs and projects. The goal of the course is to provide practical experience in start-to-finish landscape assessment. No prior knowledge is presumed, but students without an introductory course in GIS or remote sensing should anticipate spending extra time building familiarity with the software used. In the first portion of the semester, students will complete weekly labs designed to build out a set of spatial science skills on provided datasets; the second portion of the course will then apply those skills to a project culminating in a poster suitable for presentation at a regional or national conference due in analog and digital form by 5pm Wednesday, December 7 and presented in class during the final exam time of 9:00 – 12:00 noon Thursday, December 8. NO LATE ASSIGNMENTS OR MAKE-UPS ARE ALLOWED.

Understanding the pressures on the world's environments and people is of paramount importance to maintaining global resources for current and future generations. Many of the most challenging environmental conflicts today present transboundary problems, where either the source of environmental bad or impacted peoples straddle administrative and political boundaries. Simultaneously many human populations around the world suffer from food and political security issues that seemingly negate their ability to engage with global environmental concerns despite the clear linkages between human health and environmental quality. Meanwhile, the world's population and consumption continue to increase, though the disparity of living quality among peoples and countries also increases. This dilemma only heightens the importance and urgency of addressing coupled environmental issues such as global warming and industrialization, agricultural production and water quantity/quality shortages, and ecosystem quality and human health. Understanding global environmental problems can be contextualized as issues that have both local impacts as well as opportunities for local solutions. First we will build global geographic literacy and work to understand differences in developed versus developing states. Second, we will turn our attention inward to assess US and Texas on the same issues, building an understanding of the similarities, differences, and potential synergies of local to global human-environment interactions. This course will tackle the science and technology of understanding these reciprocal through a series of case studies in both industrialized and developing states, emphasizing throughout the impacts of globalization on bringing Texas to the world and the world to our own backyard.