Honors Course

Contemporary conservation often involves ex situ (outside of natural environments) efforts in zoo and aquarium facilities to provide opportunities for species to persist until challenges in the wild are remedied. This course will focus on current topics in zoo and aquarium conservation and management. Subjects covered include captive breeding and releases, the role of education in zoos, enclosure habitat enhancement, animal behavior, handling and monitoring techniques, and other topics that are important in the conservation of captive wild animals.

This course focuses on economic methods for designing and evaluating water, food and environmental policies. Topics include optimizing water as an input in producing food, energy, recreation, and other ecosystem services; water & environmental issues in food production; pricing and conservation incentives; managing shortage risks; and economic tools for addressing conflicts over water, food and the environment. Interactive seminar style course. Calculus proficiency is required.

Introduction to resource management practices used to achieve societal goals. Includes practices used to produce water, wood, forage, wildlife and other renewable resources; to protect water, soil, wilderness and scenic attractions; and to mitigate the adverse impacts of management and land-use activities on the environment.

The course aims to provide students with a broad, balanced understanding of fire as a biophysical process. We will explore fire from many perspectives, including physics, ecology, biogeography, management, policy, and economics. The course will strive to make our study of fire interesting and relevant in the contemporary world by examining how such factors as climate change, invasive species, and land use influence how fire interacts with the landscape. We will examine a variety of fire management strategies including fire suppression, prescribed fire, wildland fire use, and landscape restoration ecology. The course will provide a global perspective on fire, with primary emphasis on ecosystems of western North America.

Principles of plant, animal, and community ecology important to the understanding and management of renewable natural resources.

In RNR 240, we examine the principles of ecotourism and how they can be used as to conserve and manage natural and human resources in a sustainable and financially viable way. We will review ecological impacts on the environment from tourism activities and learn how these are often managed as we examine numerous case studies throughout the world. We will conclude the course by studying established models used to deal with too many tourists at popular destinations. RNR 240 is open to students in all majors.

In this course we address fundamental knowledge that supports the study and appreciation of plants in their natural environments. Emphasis is placed on species found in the southwestern United States. The course begins with the fundamental elements of plant growth, development, physiology, and reproduction. Using this foundation, we then cover plant identification and taxonomy, and how environmental factors affect plant growth, distribution, and assemblage into communities. We conclude with a consideration of roles played by plants in ecological processes and how human-driven processes affect these processes. RNR 230R is open to students in all majors and is a core course in the Natural Resources undergraduate curriculum in the School of Natural Resources & the Environment

Historical and philosophical developments in natural resources management; socio-political, economic, and ecological factors affecting resource use; the role of people and organizations in conservation of resources such as rangelands, forests, water, fish and wildlife.

This course involves the study of nature emphasizing humans as a component of it. We learn how living things and physical processes function and interconnect to generate the complex environments of our planet. Our perspective is based on the methods natural scientists use to understand nature. We examine on how this understanding may lead to solutions to challenges in the environment, medicine, and agriculture. Our approach throughout this course focuses on the roles of quantitative information in decision making in natural science and other aspects of modern life. We apply the key elements of the practice of natural science to evaluate and interpret quantitative information and develop hypotheses about biological phenomena relevant in our lives. We locate or collect data, organize and analyze these data, and develop conclusions from these analyses. Finally, we examine communication of our findings to multiple audiences using a variety of representations.

For as long as humans have been on earth, we have coexisted with animals on their planet. From food, to art to culture, wildlife have been symbols in religion, advanced societies through agriculture, medicine, and fueled human innovation and creativity. There are an estimated 8.7 million different species, with rapid extinction resulting in losses before they've ever been described. Here we learn how other species have shaped and influenced cultures throughout human history and how efforts dedicated toward conservation began and have evolved over time. Topics covered include a basic introduction to wildlife diversity and biology followed by the history of wildlife in human disease and medicine; wildlife domestication for food security and companionship; wildlife in artistic inspiration and creation; and wildlife in technological innovation. Medicine, art, food, clothes, and technology have all been influenced by our wild counterparts. Come meet them!