This course will explore the physical science of the Earth's environment and human interactions with it. Coverage will include the Earth's various environmental systems, various environmental problems, and the direct and indirect causes of these environmental problems. Fresman seminar will mirror the ENVS100 recitation, and have additional discussions and social media projects.

The application of geophysical investigation techniques to problems of the local and shallow subsurface structure of the earth. The application of geophysical measurements and interpretation for environmental site characterizations, locating buried structures, groundwater investigations, and identifying geotechnical hazards with emphasis on gravity methods, seismic refraction and reflection, electrical resistivity, electromagnetic methods, ground penetrating radar, and borehole nuclear logging.

This seminar is designed to help Juniors prepare for the Senior Thesis research. Topic selection, advisor identification, funding options, and basic research methods will be discussed.

In 2007, Penn became one of the first universities in the country to commit to creating a more sustainable campus. President Amy Gutmann's press release on February 7, 2005 announced that Penn would develop a comprehensive sustainability plan by 2009. In President Gutmann's speech, she stated that Penn's sustainability plan would, "Include completing a comprehensive inventory of all its greenhouse gas emissions; purchasing at least 15 percent of its electricity from renewable sources; adopting an energy efficient appliance purchasing program; committing to a policy that new construction be built to the US Green Building Council LEED Silver standards, or equivalent; and providing access to public transit for faculty, students, and staff."


How has Penn's "environmental footprint" changed? The students will build on the work of others, document existing efforts at Penn, and benchmark against other universities. The course will explore the issues mentioned above and and will also address issues such as storm-water management, the greening of campus, and leadership in the nearby community. The students will establish baseline data and measurement strategies so that success can be measured, and then will develop strategies to collect and analyze additional data. Included in the course will be the concepts of environmental management systems, secondary impacts (e.g., commuting habits of Penn employees), pollution prevention, and life-cycle analysis. Each student or group of students, will select an area of focus for their research exercise (e.g., energy, recycling, green buildings) and develop a report that can be used by the Penn administration to advance Penn's efforts toward sustainability. The students a cumulative class report summarizing their ideas for improvement. This report will be delivered the President's Office.

This course will provide an understanding of the Earth's climate system and how and why this has changed through time. The emphasis will be placed on spatial and temporal scales in the modern system while exploring the evidence for past change, possible mechanisms to explain these changes, and the implications of these changes to past, present, and future global climate. Students will learn to reconstruct the history and scales of climate change through the use of proxies; understand the mechanisms that act to drive climate change; show an understanding of the long-term natural climate variability on a global and regional scale; understand the importance of natural environmental change, against which to assess human impacts, recent climate change and issues of future environmental change.

The course will explore all 4 sectors of the water business in the United States: The Drinking Water Industry, The Stormwater Utility, Water Resources (rivers, streams, reservoirs) Management and the Water Pollution Control Industry. The course will have 2 primary foci: 1. The influences on the industry from new technologies and infrastructure, acceptable levels of risk, public and private sector competition, climate change, the bottled water industry, resource recovery, rates and affordability and other influences will be investigated. 2. The management of a 21st century utility will be explored, including topics of organization and leadership, the role of environmentalism, infrastructure financing, water / wastewater treatment facility operations, public affairs and media, and designing a capital improvement program are examples of topic areas.