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.

This course will evaluate the multiple factors that must function to ensure the sustainability of estuaries of national significance. Since the beginning of the environmental movement in the 1960s, we have attempted to protect and improve our watersheds and estuaries through a series of environmental laws, but we learned over the last three decades that regulatory-based "command & control" approaches may have achieved their limits of success, and we now need to think more holistically in order to achieve the Clean Water Act goal of "fishable and swimmable" waters. In this course we will explore the new collaborative strategies and partnerships, which are available, and how social, economic and cultural factors are equally important as regulation to achieve estuary restoration. The National Estuary Program (NEP) was established in 1987 by amendments to the Clean Water Act (Section 320) to identify, restore and protect estuaries along the coasts of the U.S. Unlike traditional regulatory approaches to environmental protection, the NEP targets a broad range of issues and engages local communities in the process. The program focuses not just on improving water quality in an estuary, but on maintaining the integrity of the whole system - its chemical, physical, and biological properties, as well as its economic, recreational, and aesthetic.


This course will examine the twenty estuaries of national significance, including the Chesapeake and the Delaware Bays, in an effort to define the condition of estuaries in the US and what strategies can be utilized to attain water quality and habitat goals while achieving important socioeconomic needs of the estuary's diverse stakeholders. You will examine the history of estuary management, the factors that stress water quality and habitat, and what strategies are commonly used to reduce risks while safeguarding the environment and public health.

Over the course of six Sunday field trips, we will travel from the barrier islands along the Atlantic Ocean in southern New Jersey to the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, visiting representative sites of the diverse landscapes in the region along the way. At each site we will study and consider interactions between geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and disturbance. Students will summarize field trip data in a weekly site report. Evening class meetings will provide the opportunity to review field trips and reports and preview upcoming trips. Six all-day Sunday field trips are required.

Using protected lands in the Delaware Valley, this field-based course will explore various strategies for open-space conservation and protection. In addition, students will be introduced to land management techniques used on such sites to restore or preserve land trust proerties in accordace with goals set for their use or protection.Sustainable land uses such as community supported agriculture, ecovillages, and permaculture design will be covered. Emphasis will be placed on developing skills in "Reading the Landscape" to determine conservation and restoration priorities. Students will produce a site assessment report on sites that they visit.

Over the course of six Sunday field trips, we will travel from the barrier islands along the Atlantic Ocean in southern New Jersey to the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, visiting representative sites of the diverse landscapes in the region along the way. At each site we will study and consider interactions between geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and disturbance. Students will summarize field trip data in a weekly site report. Evening class meetings will provide the opportunity to review field trips and reports and preview upcoming trips. Six all-day Sunday field trips are required.

Sustainability is more than science, engineering, policy, and design. Surveyingthe world, we see that the politics and practice of sustainability play out in different ways depending on cultural factors. Some cultures are more prone to pursue ecological goals than others. Why? Do the environmental history and experience of a nation affect policy? Do nature and the environmentplay a crucial role in the cultural memory of a nation? Can cultural componentsbe effectively leveraged in order to win approval for a politics of sustainability? And what can we, as residents of a country where climate changeand global warming are flashpoints in an enduring culture war, learn from other cultures? This course is designed to equip undergraduate students with the historical and cultural tools necessary to understand the cultural aspects of sustainability in two countries noted for their ecological leadership and cultural innovation, Germany and the Netherlands.