ENVB * 3010 – Climate Change Biology F (3-0) [0.50]

I took this as a DE course during the summer. The prof is one of the best ones I\'ve had so far. The course is designed so that everything is interlinked together, and she makes concepts really easy to understand. The projects are directly related to the course material, so you really need to understand the core concepts in order to do well on the projects. That being said, the projects themselves are relatively simple as long as you give yourself some time to work on them. It was really nice to be able to apply what I learned from the course directly onto the projects. The group projects can be frustrating if you have group members who won\'t cooperate, but the prof is understanding about it as long as you communicate with her. The textbook is mostly used to enforce what you learned from the course material, but some of the questions on the weekly quizzes can be from the textbook so definitely get the textbook. I truly feel like I learned a lot from this course that are applicable to my day-to-day life, and I genuinely enjoyed this course thoroughly.

I thought I would write a comment here to provide a little more information on this course in DE format, since I wasn’t able to find any information at all before starting! So for Summer 2016 DE, there were 10 quizzes (20%), 10 group discussions each with a task to hand in (20%), 3 assignments (45%), and a take-home final (15%). The instructor Simone Harri is amazing, and has made really clear Courselink units with videos that really help. I truly enjoyed going through the units each week, and she’s super active on the discussion boards if you have any questions or want to chat about anything climate change related. The 3 projects did require a fair amount of work, but were quite interesting so I enjoyed them. The quizzes had no time limit and were easy to do once you finished the unit for that week. The discussions were kind of annoying due to the task you had to complete as a group by the end of each week, but you’ll get through them. Overall, the instructor really wants you to leave with a true understanding of the concepts, and I really do believe I’ll remember them for a long time despite not even having to study for a final exam!

This class was pretty interesting, at the beginning much of it is similar to BIOL 2060 Ecology. The break down isn't too bad, a paper, group project midterm and final. The group project helps to boost your grade. Lectures are a little hard to keep up with if you haven't done the readings. It definitely helps to read the textbook because she goes over everything in lecture with minimal detail so you have to do the readings. Overall, not a bad class if you're interested in the content just make sure you do the readings because it helps out a lot for this class!

The Prof is definitely very approachable and is extremely nice. She really wants you to do well and admits when she doesn't have the best understanding of a topic and welcomes contribution from other students in the class to clera up questions that she cant. The essays are either very easy or very hard but you get to sign up for a topic so sign up carefully... There is a poster group project with a presentation in the atrium, very interesting process that I actually feel I benefited from a lot. The midterm seemed really easy until we got the marks back.. something like 30% of the class failed and most of teh class got a hair over 60. Even though I studied a lot and thought I would be getting an 85, I only got 70. This is really an interesting course if you have an interst in climate change, it really covers a lot, but it's certainly not an easy average boosting class.

When I took this course it did not seem to follow the course description...or any description for that matter. I often had no idea what was going on during lecture or how each lecture related to one another or to climate change. Based solely on the description, I think there is potential for this course to be good with a more organized professor.