ENV 101 Introduction to Environmental Sciences (Credits: 3)
The course aims to introduce students to basic environmental science principles, including the structure and functioning of ecosystems and their physical and bio-chemical cycles. The course will emphasize the importance of these processes for human health as well as human impact on these processes. As a science course, the course will teach students to use the methods of scientific inquiry to raise questions about global systems, their impact on humans, and human impact on them. Specific topics to be covered include but are not limited to biodiversity, quantity and quality of water, land and air resources, environmental conservation, human population trends and dynamic, food and industrial production, and waste and toxicity. Topics will be supplemented by Armenia and Caucasus-specific cases and problem sets. Students are required to attend three field trips over the weekend. Three hours of instructor-led class time per week.
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ENV 120 Food (Credits: 3)
This course provides a fundamental knowledge on food, its economics and environmental sustainability focusing on food values chains, production, and domestic and international marketing. This entails description of primary agricultural resources and inputs (including key environmental concerns related with these inputs), production technologies, post-harvest handling, logistics, marketing and state regulations and interventions. The course will also discuss government policies on food security, safety, trade, and environmental resilience and sustainability. Students will also learn developments in food industry such as genetically modified food, organic agriculture, fair trade, and reduction of food loss. Students will have to participate in one field visit to a food-production facility, which will most likely be organized on a weekend. Three hours of instructor-led class time per week.
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ENV 140 Solid and Hazardous Waste (Credits: 3)
The course is designed for undergraduate students to understand the fundamental principles and key technologies of solid and hazardous waste management. It encompasses environmental and health effects of solid and hazardous wastes as well as the legal and regulatory framework that relates to waste management. The course will cover various waste streams (household, commercial, industrial, medical, etc.) and central principles of their management, including collection, handling, sorting, transportation, reprocessing/recycling, and disposal. The course will also discuss waste minimization strategies, zero-waste approaches, reuse and recycle technologies, and waste-to-energy solutions. As a science-based, quantitative course, the lectures and discussions will be supplemented with learning activities, such as visits to waste disposal sites, scientific investigations, and numerical problem solving. Three hours of instructor-led class time per week.
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ENV 202 Projects in Environmental Sciences (Credits: 3)
This upper division course is designed for undergraduate students to gain a deeper understanding and competence in environmental project design, implementation, and evaluation. The projects can be in technology, science, conservation, management, restoration, promotion/marketing, education, and other related topics. The course, however, emphasizes data collection and analysis for assessing the success and impact of project ideas. The students will design and complete a project for the course. The types of environmental projects will vary depending on student and faculty agreement. The projects may be related to the following broad topics: Clean technologies; IT, satellite, remote sensing solutions in environmental protection; alternative transport, clean transport; renewable-energy generation or energy efficiency; sustainable water use, solid waste management, sustainable agriculture and food production; mining pollution prevention/ management; forest protection/management/restoration; watershed rotection/management/restoration; air-quality protection/management/restoration; and flora or fauna monitoring/conservation/restoration. Three hours of instructor-led discussion per week.
Prerequisites: 1 lower division course in QS or ENV
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ENV 210 Disasters (Credits: 3)
This course explores the history, fundamentals, principles, theories, and approaches to disaster management. Students study natural and manmade disasters and the planning and management tools available for preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Topical investigations include: an overview of disaster management, the range of physical and human impacts, the role of decision-makers and the general public, and structural and non-structural techniques in this quantitative science course. Armenia- specific cases and scenarios are also considered and discussed. Three hours of instructor-led class time per week.
Prerequisites: 1 lower division course in QS or ENV or Health
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ENV 230 Water (Credits: 3)
Without adequate supply of freshwater our economies will not function and our health will not be secured. Human overuse and pollution of freshwater can also cause political conflict as well as damage ecosystems. This course will examine water from various perspectives including ecological, human health, resource stewardship, economic, and legal/political. Specific topics to be covered include water supply and use in manufacturing, mining, energy, agriculture and domestic life; potential for resource efficiency and optimization; water quality and types of water pollution, methods of testing and monitoring water quality and conditions of freshwater ecosystems; water purification and wastewater treatment; water planning and management tools/models including those for watersheds, surface, and ground waterresources; new technologies, such as desalination, to access freshwater; and international and national laws on water. The course includes field and lab work opportunities as well as introductory approaches to modeling water systems.
Prerequisites: One lower division course that clusters with
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ENV 250 Biodiversity: Conservation and Restoration (Credits: 3)
This course is designed for undergraduate students to develop basic quantitative skills for deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of the current worldwide loss of plant, animal and other species. The course will cover the theory and practice of managing endangered species and the conservation and restoration of habitats and species populations. The course will emphasize how to apply science and the scientific method in the conservation and restoration of biodiversity. Worldwide as well as Armenia-specific cases will reviewed. A key expected outcome of the course is students’ competence in measuring trends using statistics and computing useful measures and indices. Three hours of instructor-led class time per week.
Prerequisites: One lower division course that clusters with
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ENV 300 Natural Environment and Humans (Credits: 1)
The course is designed for graduate students from disparate disciplines to gain an overview of environmental principals and current environmental issues. The course will cover four broad areas. First it will discuss what ecosystems are, how they function, and the main processes keeping them stable. Second, it will review key environmental issues including climate change, loss of biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorous cycle disruptions, eutrophication, chemical pollution (including persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, particulate, etc.), degradation of natural habitats (deforestation, grasslands change and wetlands drainage), and so on. Third, basic environmental concepts, frameworks, and tools will be presented including sustainability, planetary boundary, ecological footprint, carbon footprint, and TRACI. Finally, the course will present broad review of regulatory and market-based policy directions employed to address environmental change. Topics will be supplemented by Armenia and Caucasus-specific cases.
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ENV 320 Geographic Information Systems and Environmental Analysis (Credits: 2)
The course aims to introduce and develop introductory and intermediate skills in application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to visualize, analyze, and interpret relationships, patterns and trends in the fields of environmental management, public health, sustainable agriculture and transportation. GIS as a tool, however, is applicable to a wide variety of fields and industries, including marketing, logistics, urban development, and so on. Students will also learn to use Global Positioning System (GPS) units to collect spatial data.
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ENV 321 Remote Sensing and Environmental Analysis (Credits: 1)
The course aims to provide a basic understanding of land-use mapping with remote-sensing techniques.The focus will be on multispectral remote sensing and pixel based image classification. For land use mapping, freely available satellite data from the Landsat mission will be used. Processing will be done with ArcMap10 or similar software.
Prerequisites: ENV320
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ENV 330 Business and Environmental Sustainability (Credits: 1)
The course is for graduate students with interest in business, management, and economics. It offers an overview of environmental challenges facing the planet today including climate change, loss of biodiversity, natural resource depletion, chemical pollution, and more. The course discusses corporate responses, political activist and governmental pressures on corporations, regulatory and market-based policy solutions, and technological innovations that are helping address these environmental challenges. Topics are supplemented by Armenia and Caucasus-specific cases.
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ENV 399 Special Topics (Credits: 1)
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