This course is assembled from UC-approved college preparatory courses and is designed to acquaint students with the physical, ecological, social, and political principles of environmental science. The scientific method is used to analyze and understand the inter-relationships between humans and the natural environment. The course shows how ecological realities and the material desires of humans often clash, leading to environmental degradation and pollution. The course covers: Earth's Systems, Human Population Dynamics, Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, Global Changes, and Environment and Society.

The earth's crust is composed of many kinds of rocks, each of which is an aggregate of one or more minerals. In geology, the term mineral describes any naturally-occurring solid substance with a specific composition and crystal structure......

Families in developing nations are often larger, but less resource intensive (e.g., they use fewer resources per person) than those in more developed nations. However, increasingly human populations wish to have a "western" standard of living.

The atmosphere, the gaseous layer that surrounds the earth, formed over four billion years ago......

This collection consists of approximately 4,500 photographs documenting natural environments, ecologies, and plant communities in the United States at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Produced between 1891 and 1936 by a group of American botanists generally regarded as one of the most influential in the development of modern ecological studies, these photographs provide an overview of important representative natural landscapes across the nation. They demonstrate the character of a wide range of American topography, its forestation, aridity, shifting coastal dune complexes, and watercourses. Comparison of early photographs with later views highlights changes resulting from natural alterations of the landscape, disturbances from industry and development, and effective natural resource usage. The photographs were taken by Henry Chandler Cowles (1869-1939), George Damon Fuller (1869-1961), and other Chicago ecologists on field trips across the North American continent.

Among the natural features these images document are ecological settings such as dunes, bogs, forests, and deserts; individual plants from the Ponderosa pine and birch to grasses and mosses; landscape features like the Grand Canyon, Lake Superior, and the Sierra Nevada; and the consequences of natural and human changes to the environment ranging from erosion and floods to irrigation and lumbering. The collection also includes photographs of University of Chicago botanists as they conducted field research, led students on summer field classes, and traveled across the North American continent on tours including the International Phytogeographic Excursion of 1913.

Applied Macro- and International Economics uses case studies to investigate the macroeconomic environment in which firms operate. The first half of the course develops the basic tools of macroeconomic management: monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate policy. The class discusses recent emerging market and financial crises by examining their causes and considering how best to address them and prevent them from recurring in the future. The second half evaluates different strategies of economic development. Topics covered in the second half of this course include growth, the role of debt and foreign aid, and the reliance on natural resources.

In this interactive, a construction project manager explains the process of constructing a wind farm, its challenges and benefits.

With the increasing fuel costs we will examine an alternative fuel Biodiesel.

See how a place-based high school curriculum project promotes STEM learning through local ethnography and conservation projects. This video segment showcases one of 11 CREST projects taking place in rural, coastal Maine communities.

Students create their own anemometers instruments for measuring wind speed. They see how an anemometer measures wind speed by taking measurements at various school locations. They also learn about different types of anemometers, real-world applications, and how wind speed information helps engineers decide where to place wind turbines.

These images show the importance of both California's natural and human resource potential to the state’s development and subsequent wealth. Natural resources like water, lumber, and oil — along with human-driven resources like transportation, agriculture, and technology — have all contributed to California's growth. These natural resources drew many different ethnic groups to the state: human resources that would construct railways and aqueducts, plant crops and harvest them, strike it rich in oil or minerals, and innovate new technology.

Through a reading, demonstration stations, and completion of a puzzle, students will recognize how respiration and photosynthesis move carbon through the earth system, how fossil fuels were formed, and how human activities have altered this movement on a global scale.

Students will design a game where players try to come up with alternative uses for used products. Students will brainstorm ideas for an effective board game format.

This lesson focuses on our natural resources and the effect our actions have on them. Students explore this concept through discussion, matching, literature, cause and effect, and writing.

This course provides a review of physical, chemical, ecological, and economic principles used to examine interactions between humans and the natural environment. Mass balance concepts are applied to ecology, chemical kinetics, hydrology, and transportation; energy balance concepts are applied to building design, ecology, and climate change; and economic and life cycle concepts are applied to resource evaluation and engineering design. Numerical models are used to integrate concepts and to assess environmental impacts of human activities. Problem sets involve development of MATLAB® models for particular engineering applications. Some experience with computer programming is helpful but not essential.

This half-semester course studies the economics of the principal markets related to marine transportation, environment, and natural resources. Topics include structures of the markets and industries involved; competition; impacts of policies and regulations. The course analyzes the relationship among industries, markets, technologies, and national policies, and introduces the concepts of national income accounts, sustainability, and intergenerational equity and their relationship to current economic practice.

Students use graph of historical data and research historical and societal events to determine and analyze trends in energy.

This site contains briefs for every country in the world of interest to energy policy makers. Each brief has a narrative section, a map showing the country's location, and a section listing pertinent economic and energy data.

A six question quiz challenging the pupils' knowledge of energy.