This course provides a professional foundation and orientation for second-year Wildlife & Conservation Biology (WCB) students. Through readings, seminars, guest speakers, and conservation, students will explore the range of what it means to be a professional Wildlife & Conservation Biologist. After taking this course, students will be better able to navigate and critique the scientific literature, synthesize and communicate information, and understand and articulate the diverse field of Wildlife & Conservation Biology.

In this course, we investigate the foundational principles of the concept of sustainability. Our objectives include: understanding the many integrated dimensions of sustainability; examining illustrations of unsustainable human-environment relations; recognizing the complexity of sustainability problems and the challenges to finding solutions; comprehending that human-environment relations are a multi-level, complex and dynamic system, and appreciating that the sustainability of ecosystems is necessarily embedded in social, cultural and historical trends.

Environmental biology focuses on the origins, functions, and interactions of populations, communities, species and ecosystems in relation to dynamic environmental processes. The main course objective is to provide a basic understanding of ecosystem function and the ecological, evolutionary, and genetic principles necessary to understand biological diversity and its distribution.

Major determinants of freshwater resources including hydrologic cycle and water balance, precipitation, stream-flow measurement, pollution, water supply and sewage treatment, water resource management and regulation. Lab/field trips.