An opportunity for students to engage in team-based, applied anthropological work on a focused project, this course is intended as a linked block that supports advanced coursework in such areas of study as human ecology, field archaeology, event ethnography or museum curatorial work. Sites for fieldwork will vary from year to year, ranging from the Rocky Mountain West and/or Southwest Regions to international settings. Incorporates such hands-on activities as participant observation, interviewing, networking, policy development, field data gathering, collections management, habitat or nutritional analysis, publication and dissemination, as well as training data analysis and presentation, rhetorical and organizational skills.

Focuses on the social and environmental consequences involved in producing various resources, ranging from agriculture to fossil fuels to the ongoing green energy transition. Global case studies will also examine how communities have—successfully and unsuccessfully—sought to resist unwanted extractive processes or redress their negative effects. Grounded primarily in political ecology and environmental history, this interdisciplinary course will prepare students to understand and critically analyze both processes of resource extraction as well as the strengths and constraints facing efforts to transform socio-ecologies.

Course will deepen a students' understanding of the frameworks used to understand sustainable development and how climate change affects sustainable development objectives and intersect with food systems.

Law for the Earth will explore how legal systems mediate our relationship with the Earth, Earth systems/processes, and nonhuman entities. Students will interrogate the dominant approaches and assumptions inherent in environmental law. Students will then explore multiple emancipatory, non-Western, and/or emergent legal approaches, including ecological law, rights of nature, and Earth system law. Students will first consider whether such approaches might address environmental inequities and injustices among humans that result from dominant approaches to environmental regulation. Second, students will consider whether and how such legal responses might address the anthropocentrism inherent to modern environmental regulation.

This off-campus course examines the successes and challenges of sustainable development in Costa Rica, particularly in the face of climate change. Through discussions with community groups, public officials, and environmentalists throughout the country, students will gain a multifaceted understanding of pressing issues including the politics of forest conservation, the social and environmental impacts of tourism, sustainable agriculture, and urban development. The relationship between the national and local governments, the role of international development aid, and Costa Rica’s contribution to global environmental governance will also be examined. The class will be based out of San José, Costa Rica, with several day and overnight trips to other parts of the country.

application of economic concepts to analysis of environmental problems. Development of approaches to dealing with the special problems of non-market goods. Discussion of the role of economics in policy analysis. Particular emphasis on problems of market failure, i.e., externalities, public goods, non-market goods, uncertainty, income distribution, inter-temporal resource allocation and policies to correct for imperfect markets. Prerequisite: -EC301 and -EC302 or consent of instructor for non-majors. 1 unit - Wilson.