The Environmental Studies major is offering preregistration for limited enrollment seminars. Environmental Studies majors have favorable consideration for enrollment. If you wish to enroll in one or more of the following courses this spring, click the preregistration link below or email the course instructor before December 9th. You will be notified on or before December 14th if you are admitted to a class. If you are admitted to a class and choose not to take it, please let the instructor know.
Keep in mind that preregistration for many cross-listed courses may be managed by another department. You can and should check preregistration requirements for every course on your worksheet. If the information is not showing on the course’s Yale Course Search description, you can look up the “Enrollment Cap, Selection Process, and Notification” information linked to the “Syllabus” button on Yale Course Search.
You can find updated BA and BS checklists here. If you have any questions about the preregistration process for EVST courses, please email Linda Evenson.
EVST 191: Trees: Environmental Biology and Global Significance
Natural Science Core Course (Sc) designation (BA)
T 2:30pm-3:45pm
Instructor: Craig Broderson. Underlying principles that govern tree biology in both time and space. The biophysics of energy balance, water transport, and gas exchange, from individual plant organs to the tree and forest canopy; principles of cells and membranes; the fundamental differences between plant and animal cells; regional and global patterns in forest dynamics; implications of disruptions in the biotic and abiotic environment. Case studies focus on understanding forests and forest products and their global significance.
Concentration Course, M 1:30pm-3:20pm
Instructor: Carl Zimmer (professor adjunct in MBB and columnist for the New York Times). Advanced non-fiction workshop in which students write about science, medicine, and the environment for a broad public audience. Students read exemplary work, ranging from newspaper articles to book excerpts, to learn how to translate complex subjects into compelling prose.
Email applications directly to carl@carlzimmer.com. Include:
1. Your name, year, major, and email address.
2. A note in which you briefly describe:
—Your background (include writing classes you’ve already taken and publications you’ve written for)
—Why you want to take this class
—Which other writing courses (if any) you’re applying to in the same semester.
3. One or two pieces of nonacademic, nonfiction writing. (No fiction. No scientific papers.) Indicate the course or publication (including url) for which you wrote each sample. An unpublished work that you didn’t write for a class is also acceptable; please note if this is the case on your piece. Your writing samples should total 5-15 pages, double-spaced. It’s fine if they’re longer than that, but add a note to explain why you want to include them in your application.
Students with questions can email carl.zimmer@yale.edu or carl@carlzimmer.com
Concentration Course, W 9:25am-11:15am
Instructor: Robert Klee. Study of innovative energy and environmental policy solutions for the problems of the Anthropocene—the new epoch of human dominance of the earth. Students explore policies for effective deployment of renewables, smart grids, corporate responsibility, emerging contaminants, zero emission vehicles, environmental information disclosure, carbon sequestration, climate adaptation, sustainable cities, and environmental education. Students critically examine these policies through the lenses of equity and environmental justice, economic impacts (positive and negative), co-benefits, communication, legal governance systems, and politics.
Natural Science Core Courses (Sc) designation (BA and BS), T 9:25am-11:15am
Instructor: Charles Tomlin. A practical introduction to the nature and use of geographic information systems (GIS) in environmental science and management. Applied techniques for the acquisition, creation, storage, management, visualization, animation, transformation, analysis, and synthesis of cartographic data in digital form.
Social Science Core Course (BA and BS), F 9:25am-11:15am
Instructor: Carol Carpenter. The history and contemporary study of anthropology and the environment, with special attention to current debates regarding human environmental relations. Topics include: nature-culture dichotomy; ecology and social organization; methodological debates; politics of the environment; and knowing the environment.
Please email Professor Carpenter with a short paragraph about yourself and your interest in the course.
Social Science Core Course (BA and BS), Th 9:25am-11:15am
Instructor: Harvey Weiss. The coincidence of societal collapses throughout history with decadal and century-scale abrupt climate change events. Challenges to anthropological and historical paradigms of cultural adaptation and resilience. Examination of archaeological and historical records and high-resolution sets of paleoclimate proxies.
Students interested in taking the course should email Professor Weiss.
Concentration Course, TTh 11:35am-12:50pm
Instructor: Mary Beth Decker. Exploration of a range of coastal and pelagic ecosystems. Relationships between biological systems and the physical processes that control the movements of water and productivity of marine systems. Anthropogenic impacts on oceans, such as the effects of fishing and climate change.
Note: This course is currently listed as ENV 729. The EVST course number will be added soon
Concentration Course, MW 1:00pm-2:15pm
Instructors: Gaboury Benoit and Mary Beth Decker
Explores human-ecosystem interactions at the land-sea interface in the tropics, with Caribbean islands as the main study sites. Many tropical islands are undergoing rapid, uncontrolled development, placing severe local stress on several unique and vulnerable ecosystems types. In addition, human-induced environmental changes on scales up to global also impose stresses. This course examines the normal functioning of these ecosystems, scientific methods to evaluate and characterize ecosystem condition and processes, how human activities interfere with natural cycles in biophysical systems, and what management and policy tools can be applied to reduce impacts.