All human activity takes place on a geographic stage of great diversity and constant transformation. For more than a century, the Geography Department at Berkeley has been a leading center of scholarship about earth’s landscapes and human relationships to the environment. Our inquiries encompass a wide range of topics, from the economies and cultures of cities and built landscapes, to tropical climates and the flow of polar ice sheets. We combine rigorous empirical work with deeply conceptual theoretical analyses, always recognizing the importance of both spatial processes and accumulated histories. We use geographic analyses to illuminate the abiding problems of the modern world.
UC Berkeley's Geography Department provides a broad-ranging perspective on humans as inhabitants and transformers of the face of the earth. The search for this kind of understanding involves thorough study of (a) the interlocking systems of the natural environment (climate, landforms, oceans, biota) and the evaluation of natural resources; (b) those diverse historical, cultural, social, economic, and political structures and processes which affect the location and spatial organization of population groups and their activities; and (c) significant geographical units, whether described as cities, regions, nations, states or landscapes, where integrated interpretation can be attempted, and a variety of problems thereby better understood.
As geographic theory and research has expanded their horizons over the past quarter-century, five research focuses have emerged to define Geography at Berkeley:
Earth System Science is the study of the interconnected components of our environment—the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere—and how they interact to produce an integrated whole. It utilizes the fundamental disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology and applies them in the context of human activities and landscapes to understand the Earth, at scales ranging from single watersheds to the entire globe. The complex system of interactions is investigated to address questions about current and future sustainability, how environmental changes affect society, and how society influences the environment.
Racial Geographies represents an insurgent geography that critically engages with questions of race, drawing from, and contributing to, an intellectual history rooted in anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles. We are concerned with how geography is explicitly and implicitly implicated in the construction and deconstruction of race and its symptoms.
Critical Environments attends to the complex relations that constitute the material and social dimensions of the modern world. We explore lives and ecologies that emerge together with histories of capitalism, militarism, racism, colonialism, and sexuality.
How peoples and cultures represent space and time are central to understanding the world, shaping the possibilities - and the limits - of our thinking, knowing, and being. We work towards cross-cultural geospatial representations in service to understanding and collaboration across communities. We also encourage antiracist and anticolonial geospatial representation in the service of planetary decolonization, to literally remake the maps and other representational forms that reinforce our divided planet.
Political Economies cuts across metropolitan and Global South/ postcolonial perspectives on contemporary questions concerning capitalist and imperialist dynamics. Berkeley Geography explores political-economic processes through urban, agrarian, and oceanic studies, emphasizing the dynamics of past, present, and future. Berkeley Geography interrogates capitalism, as well as its articulations with other forms of value and devaluation of places and people, through racial, gendered, sexual, and colonial relations. Berkeley Geography also explores human-environment relations and questions concerning social natures and political-ecological processes through the lens of critical political economy.
Bachelor of Arts in Geography
UC Berkeley's Geography B.A. is unusually broad and diverse, including the study of cultural, economic, political, historical, biophysical, urban and regional geography as well as cartography, quantitative methods, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing and fieldwork. Backgrounds in the natural and social sciences, history, and statistical methods may be useful to the Geography major, with the mix and emphasis depending on the student's particular interests. Completing a major in Geography requires the satisfactory completion of three lower-division courses and eight upper-division courses. Lower-division requirements ensure that all students gain a broad understanding of the discipline, while upper-division requirements are structured to allow students to specialize in the areas of their greatest interest.
Geography students are expected to have diverse interests and independent thought. The department welcomes students from a variety of backgrounds, including those with professional experience who wish to deepen their education. Students are encouraged to roam freely through the curriculum and to follow their inspiration where it leads while working in tandem with faculty and staff advisers.
Students may declare the Geography major after completing at least 30 units with a 2.0 or better cumulative UC Berkeley GPA and after completing at least two of the three lower-division requirements. Junior transfer students should declare their major during the beginning of their second semester at UC Berkeley. Students are able to use community college coursework as substitutions for lower-division requirements with approval from the Undergraduate Major Advisor.
In addition to completing the three lower-division course requirements, students must also complete eight upper-division courses, with a total of at least 24 units in upper-division courses, in order to satisfy the requirements of the major.
Students must take one course from four of the five following research areas:
Students must complete an additional four upper-division courses in the Geography department. Students can earn an emphasis in a research area by completing a total of four courses in that research area. A maximum of two upper-division courses from related fields may be applied as substitutions if they are approved by the Undergraduate Major Advisor.
All courses taken to fulfill the major requirements must be taken for graded credit unless the course is only offered on a Pass/No Pass basis.
All students must complete at least one semester of residence in the major before graduation.
A minimum 2.0 grade point average (GPA) must be maintained in both upper- and lower-division courses used to fulfill the major requirements.
Students must learn at least a C- in all courses required for the major, including lower- and upper-division courses.
Minor Requirements
General Guidelines
All minors must be declared before the first day of classes in your Expected Graduation Term (EGT). For summer graduates, minors must be declared prior to the first day of Summer Session A.
All upper-division courses must be taken for a letter grade.
A minimum of three of the upper-division courses taken to fulfill the minor requirements must be completed at UC Berkeley.
A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 is required in the upper-division courses to fulfill the minor requirements.
Courses used to fulfill the minor requirements may be applied toward the Seven-Course Breadth requirement, for Letters & Science students.
No more than one upper division course may be used to simultaneously fulfill requirements for a student's major and minor programs.
All minor requirements must be completed prior to the last day of finals during the semester in which the student plans to graduate. If students cannot finish all courses required for the minor by that time, they should see a College of Letters & Science adviser.
All minor requirements must be completed within the unit ceiling. (For further information regarding the unit ceiling, please see the College Requirements tab.)
Requirements
Our minor curriculum requirements follow a similar structure as our major requirements. Minor students complete five upper-division courses that engage with at least three of the research areas of Berkeley Geography: Geospatial Representations, Earth System Science, Critical Environments, Racial Geographies, and Political Economies. Students are allowed to use up to two non-Geography upper-division course substitutes toward their minor requirements.
Upper Division Courses
Course List
Code
Title
Units
Students are required to take 3 courses from 3 of the 5 following areas (A - E)1
Note:GEOG 198, GEOG 199 can be applied to any UD area by petition, depending on the subject matter. A maximum of two UD courses from related fields may be applied to the minor if they are approved by the Undergraduate Major Advisor.
Major Regulations
Pre-requisites: Check the Course Catalog for the prerequisites to all listed courses.
Grading Option: All minor courses, including those applied to the minor from other departments, must be completed for a letter grade.
GPA Requirements: At least 2.0 overall UC average in all upper-division courses and all courses for the minor.
Minor: With the approval of each department advisor, 1 course may be applied simultaneously to both the Geography minor and chosen major.
College Requirements
Undergraduate students must fulfill the following requirements in addition to those required by their major program.
For a detailed lists of L&S requirements, please see Overview tab to the right in this guide or visit the L&S Degree Requirements webpage. For College advising appointments, please visit the L&S Advising Pages.
All students who will enter the University of California as freshmen must demonstrate their command of the English language by fulfilling the Entry Level Writing requirement. Fulfillment of this requirement is also a prerequisite to enrollment in all reading and composition courses at UC Berkeley and must be taken for a letter grade.
The American History and American Institutions requirements are based on the principle that all U.S. residents who have graduated from an American university should have an understanding of the history and governmental institutions of the United States.
All undergraduate students at Cal need to take and pass this campus requirement course in order to graduate. The requirement offers an exciting intellectual environment centered on the study of race, ethnicity and culture of the United States. AC courses are plentiful and offer students opportunities to be part of research-led, highly accomplished teaching environments, grappling with the complexity of American Culture.
College of Letters & Science Essential Skills Requirements
The Quantitative Reasoning requirement is designed to ensure that students graduate with basic understanding and competency in math, statistics, or computer/data science. The requirement may be satisfied by exam or by taking an approved course taken for a letter grade.
The Foreign Language requirement may be satisfied by demonstrating proficiency in reading comprehension, writing, and conversation in a foreign language equivalent to the second semester college level, either by passing an exam or by completing approved course work taken for a letter grade.
In order to provide a solid foundation in reading, writing, and critical thinking the College of Letters and Science requires two semesters of lower division work in composition in sequence. Students must complete parts A & B reading and composition courses in sequential order by the end of their fourth semester for a letter grade.
College of Letters & Science 7 Course Breadth Requirements
The undergraduate breadth requirements provide Berkeley students with a rich and varied educational experience outside of their major program. As the foundation of a liberal arts education, breadth courses give students a view into the intellectual life of the University while introducing them to a multitude of perspectives and approaches to research and scholarship. Engaging students in new disciplines and with peers from other majors, the breadth experience strengthens interdisciplinary connections and context that prepares Berkeley graduates to understand and solve the complex issues of their day.
Unit Requirements
120 total units
Of the 120 units, 36 must be upper division units
Of the 36 upper division units, 6 must be taken in courses offered outside your major department
Residence Requirements
For units to be considered in "residence," you must be registered in courses on the Berkeley campus as a student in the College of Letters & Science. Most students automatically fulfill the residence requirement by attending classes at Cal for four years, or two years for transfer students. In general, there is no need to be concerned about this requirement, unless you graduate early, go abroad for a semester or year, or want to take courses at another institution or through UC Extension during your senior year. In these cases, you should make an appointment to meet an L&S College adviser to determine how you can meet the Senior Residence Requirement.
Note: Courses taken through UC Extension do not count toward residence.
Senior Residence Requirement
After you become a senior (with 90 semester units earned toward your B.A. degree), you must complete at least 24 of the remaining 30 units in residence in at least two semesters. To count as residence, a semester must consist of at least 6 passed units. Intercampus Visitor, EAP, and UC Berkeley-Washington Program (UCDC) units are excluded.
You may use a Berkeley Summer Session to satisfy one semester of the Senior Residence requirement, provided that you successfully complete 6 units of course work in the Summer Session and that you have been enrolled previously in the college.
Modified Senior Residence Requirement
Participants in the UC Education Abroad Program (EAP), Berkeley Summer Abroad, or the UC Berkeley Washington Program (UCDC) may meet a Modified Senior Residence requirement by completing 24 (excluding EAP) of their final 60 semester units in residence. At least 12 of these 24 units must be completed after you have completed 90 units.
Upper Division Residence Requirement
You must complete in residence a minimum of 18 units of upper division courses (excluding UCEAP units), 12 of which must satisfy the requirements for your major.
Student Learning Goals
Learning Goals for the Major
Spatial, holistic thinking at the intersections of society, space, and nature
Phenomena in place: Explain the spatial dimensions (location, place, landscape, region, and territory) of human life and the global environment—how human and earth science phenomena “take their place” on the surface of the earth.
Earth systems: Comprehend how the Earth functions as a complex system of interacting components and how this system applies to and is affected by humanity.
Scales of space and time: Understand processes operating at different spatial and temporal scales in the earth system and in human histories.
Nature and society: Recognize natural resource flows through human systems and identify social constructions of nature and vulnerabilities to natural disasters.
Interdisciplinarity: Combine insights from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to better understand the problems of the increasingly interconnected and ecologically fragile world.
Addressing diversity in both human and physical geography
Peoples and places: Discuss, interpret, and explain differences of wealth, power, health, and well-being between and within societies, and the processes that create these patterns.
Physical processes: Discuss, interpret, and explain the diversity of—and the processes responsible for—the landforms, climates, and ecosystems that constitute our planet’s physical landscapes.
Reading landscapes: Deduce questions and hypotheses through clues in material landscapes.
Analysis and application for students interested in human geography
Role of Space: Understand the function of boundaries, territories, places, networks, and other spatial forms in the workings of human societies.
Power and landscapes: Understand the projection, protection, and contestation of power through the production of ideas, cultures, empires, and spatial forms.
Roles of cities: Grasp the roles and forms of cities as records and motors of modern life, and the interactions of urban areas with hinterlands and global networks.
Food systems: Compare and contrast agrarian and industrial food supply systems around the world.
Society-environment interactions: Understand the mutual influences and ramifications of biophysical and social processes in the dynamics of societies at scales from the local to the global.
Analysis and application for students interested in physical geography
Earth system science: Analyze interconnected environmental systems with process-based geophysical, geochemical, and biological sciences in the context of current social environmental problems.
Modeling: Construct models of the earth as a system of interconnected components, highlighting forcings and feedbacks.
Experiments: Formulate and apply scientific hypotheses and devise tests for them.
Science and society: Analyze and evaluate the role of science in shaping social forces, and being shaped by them.
Application of basic skills in research, knowledge of literature, analysis, and communication
Write clearly: Demonstrate ability to focus and elaborate on chosen topics.
Read critically: Critically analyze and assess arguments in professional journals, public media, and advocacy literature.
Empirical plus theoretical: Produce work with robust empirical research (that locates, interprets, and puts together relevant and reliable sources of information) as well as intellectual and theoretical rigor.
Use of mapping: Understand the production, interpretation, and use of mapping in all its forms and scales.
Applying quantitative skills: Apply basic quantitative skills such as statistics, algebra, and interpreting graphs.
Analytical ability: Demonstrate analytical ability: including the ability to identify questions, differentiate descriptions from explanations, make connections between empirical observations and arguments, and differentiate between competing explanations of a given phenomenon.
Lifetime skills
Continuing concern: Show continuing concern, curiosity, and zeal for geography and for applying geographical understanding.
Representing geography: Represent the usefulness of geography and geographical points of view to—depending on the circumstances—prospective employers, educators, policy makers, resource managers, developers, engineers, the public, and acquaintances.
Major Map
Major maps are experience maps that help undergraduates plan their Berkeley journey based on intended major or field of interest. Featuring student opportunities and resources from your college and department as well as across campus, each map includes curated suggestions for planning your studies, engaging outside the classroom, and pursuing your career goals in a timeline format.
Use the major map below to explore potential paths and design your own unique undergraduate experience:
The Geography department is committed to providing a safe, inclusive environment for all students. The Undergraduate Major Advisor is available to support students and assist them in successfully completing the Geography major. The UMA is a great resource for the following:
Declaring the Geography major or minor and understanding the requirements
Advice about schedule planning, including study abroad
Information about research opportunities, scholarships, graduate and professional schools, and/or internships and career opportunities
Scheduling conflicts, registration holds, or other major-specific academic policies
Information and applications for the Honors Program, supervised independent study, or field study experiences
Advice on navigating personal issues that may impact a student's performance in the major or minor
Students are encouraged to utilize the Undergraduate Major Advisor as a resource in whatever ways they need support and assistance within the department.
Undergraduate Faculty Advisor
In addition to the Undergraduate Major Advisor, the department has a designated Undergraduate Faculty Advisor who can also serve as a valuable resource to students pursuing the Geography major. Students are welcome to ask the Undergraduate Faculty Advisor questions about the content of Geography courses, research opportunities, graduate school, and career options in the field of Geography.
The faculty advisor welcomes students to meet with them during their office hours or by special appointment.
Courses
Geography
Terms offered: Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session
The global pattern of climate, landforms, vegetation, and soils. The relative importance of natural and human-induced change, global warming, forest clearance, accelerated soil erosion, glacial/postglacial climate change and its consequences. Global Environmental Change: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for Geography N1 after completing Geography 1. A deficient grade in Geography 1 maybe removed by taking Geography N1.
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2014 10 Week Session, Summer 2014 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2013 Second 6 Week Session
Historical and contemporary cultural-environmental patterns. The development and spread of cultural adaptations, human use of resources, transformation and creation of human environments. World Peoples and Cultural Environments: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 2.5 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 2 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2023 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 Second 6 Week Session
Historical and contemporary cultural-environmental patterns. The development and spread of cultural adaptations, human use of resources, transformation and creation of human environments. World Peoples and Cultural Environments: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for Geography N4 after completing Geography 4. A deficient grade in Geography 4 maybe removed by taking Geography N4.
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2017, Fall 2016
Geography is a way of thinking deeply and expansively about the world we inhabit and this course is designed to transform how you think about, understand and engage in its makings and re-makings. Ideas central to the field of geography such as space, nature, empire and globalization animate the histories and politics of each of these issues and many other cases. Our approach will not be to simply learn about the regions of the world, but to think critically and geographically about how region's, peoples and states and other foundational concepts have come into being and how they might be otherwise. Worldings - Regions, Peoples and States: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: ●
Discuss how some of the most consequential forces of modernity organized people into populations; lands into territory; and nations into states.
●
Discuss the violent and contested history surrounding the organization of regions, parks, cities, and neighborhoods whose enduring forms produce and reproduce racism, poverty, and gender inequalities.
●
Explain the practices and processes through which we have transformed climates, oceans, landforms and hydrological cycles and how these changes are creating new vastly uneven vulnerabilities.
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Apply a solid working knowledge of how to approach politics with a geographic mindset.
●
Articulate a critical understanding of the core themes in human geography (Space, Nature, Empire, and Globalization) and explain their role in constituting the contemporary world.
●
Imagine new possibilities and alternative ways of engaging in and critically thinking about key geopolitical, social, and environmental issues that shape our modern world.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Geography is a way of thinking deeply and expansively about our place in the world and this course is designed to transform how you think about America though understanding its place within a global context. Through concepts central to the field of geography such as space, nature, empire and globalization we will explore the issues of race, culture, ethnicity that pepper the pages of newspapers almost every day in stories of immigration, police violence, global warming, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism. We explore these issues in a way that will change how you understand both America and the world. Worldings: Regions, Peoples and States: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: Understand the complexities of different racial/ethnic groups and their role in the making of America through comparative study in their global context
Articulate a critical understanding of the core themes in human geography (Space, Nature, Empire, and Globalization) and explain their role in constituting forms of difference (race, ethnicity etc.) in the contemporary world.
Discuss the violent and contested histories of regions, cities, and neighborhoods whose enduring material structures produce and reproduce racial inequalities in spatial form.
Explain the processes through which environmental changes are creating new vastly uneven vulnerabilities among different racial, ethnic and class groups.
Explain how concepts of nature have been a means for making and fixing of ethnic and racial difference in America.
Explain how global uneven development and racial and economic inequities are connected to debates around immigration, citizenship and wealth/poverty in America.
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students who have taken Geog 10 or Geog W10AC may not take Geog 10AC additionally. Also, students that have taken Geog 10AC may not take Geog 10 or Geog W10AC.
Requirements this course satisfies: Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
How do processes of production, exchange and consumption work in our contemporary era of volatility and fragility? This course takes a historical and geographical approach to understand how areas of the world have been incorporated into contemporary global processes differently. Globalization: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 Second 6 Week Session
Global economics and politics are undergoing a revolution. Transnational enterprises, international trade, and digitized finance are merging its formerly separate national economies. New regional and transnational treaties and institutions, from the EU and NAFTA to the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank, are arising to regulate the new global economy. Power is being transferred from national states to these institutions, not always smoothly or in predictable ways. This course is about this medley. Globalization: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week 8 weeks - 5.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 freshmen. Freshman Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1 hour of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: The grading option will be decided by the instructor when the class is offered. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2017, Spring 2014
The intersection of nature, identity, and politics pepper the pages of newspapers almost every day from stories of toxic waste sites, crime, genetic engineering to indigenous struggles, and terrorist tendencies. In all these and many other cases, ideas of race, class, and gender intersect with ideas of nature and geography in often tenacious and troubling ways. Our approach will be to understand these traditional ideas of environmental justice as well as to examine less traditional sites of environmental justice such as the laboratory, the war zone, the urban mall, and the courtroom. Justice, Nature, and the Geographies of Identity: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
European, Japanese, and American empires have covered large portions of the surface of the earth and collectively transformed the lives of billions of people. Today, China is also increasingly influential at the global scale. Focusing on the twentieth century into the present moment, this survey course explores global geographies of imperialism and hegemonic transitions. What drives imperialism? Are militarism and war inherent to global capitalism? How do historical relations of colonialism relate to uneven capitalist development today at the global scale? The course introduces key theories and debates on the topic of imperialism and explores the themes of race, gender, territory, development, resource extraction, finance, and militarism. Global Geographies of Imperialism: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course is designed as an introduction to Global Studies. Using a social science approach, the course prepares students to think critically about issues of international development, conflict, and peace in a variety of societies around the world. As such, it provides students with a basic theoretical introduction to the impact of global interaction as well as an opportunity to explore such interaction in a variety of case studies. Introduction to Global Studies: Read More [+]
Terms offered: Spring 2014, Summer 2013 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2012 First 6 Week Session
Problems of Third World poverty and development have come to be seen as inseparable from environmental health and sustainability. The course explores the global and interconnected character of environment and development in the less developed world. Drawing on case studies of the environmental problems of the newly industrializing states, food problems, and environmental security in Africa, and the global consequences of tropical deforestation in Amazonia and carbon dioxide emissions in China, this course explores how growth and stagnation are linked to problems of environmental sustainability. Global Ecology and Development: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 8 hours of lecture and 2 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 1.5 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2012
This course examines how shifting understandings of science and technology have radically remade some of our most basic social and biological categories and concepts. The course explores the field of science and technology studies. In particular, students will explore formations and understandings of truth, objectivity, universality of science and technology, and the consequences of these cultural formations in contemporary debates around the world. The Politics of Science and Technology: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
The goals of this introductory Earth System Science course are to achieve a scientific understanding of important problems in global environmental change and to learn how to analyze a complex system using scientific methods. Earth System Science is an interdisciplinary field that describes the cycling of energy and matter between the different spheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and lithosphere) of the earth system. Under the overarching themes of human-induced climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and biodiversity loss, we will explore key concepts of solar radiation, plate tectonics, atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and the history of life on Earth. Introduction to Earth System Science: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 5 hours of laboratory per week 8 weeks - 5.5 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Not yet offered
In this course we will explore the dynamic forces that shape biodiversity patterns across space and through time. Students will be introduced to the fundamental concept of biodiversity, from genes to ecosystems, as well as the causes and consequences of biodiversity loss in the context of ongoing planetary changes. Through lectures, readings, and discussions we will cover topics including the origin and distribution of biodiversity, ecological processes that influence biodiversity (e.g., disturbances) and the different scales at which they operate, how biodiversity is commonly measured, and the role of human activities in biodiversity loss.
Course Objectives: Apply knowledge gained from lectures, readings, and discussions to proposed evidence-based solutions to real-world biodiversity challenges. Critically evaluate current research and debates in the field of biodiversity conservation. Describe and understand major drivers of biodiversity loss, including habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, and overexploitation. Evaluate hypotheses that explain changing patterns of biodiversity. Understand global and local-scale patterns of species diversity, including extinction and evolution, and ecological processes that influence biodiversity. Understand how to measure common biodiversity indices, apply this understanding to real-world field conditions, and evaluate their effectiveness for different organisms,
environments, and scales. Understand the different levels of biodiversity (genetic, species, ecosystems) and how they are related.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
California had been called "the great exception" and "America, only more so." Yet few of us pay attention to its distinctive traits and to its effects beyond our borders. California may be "a state of mind," but it is also the most dynamic place in the most powerful country in the world, and would be the 8th largest economy if it were a country. Its wealth has been built on mining, agriculture, industry, trade, and finance. Natural abundance and geographic advantage have played their parts, but the state's greatest resource has been its wealth and diversity of people, who have made it a center of technological and cultural innovation from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. Yet California has a dark side of exploitation and racialization. California: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 8 hours of lecture and 2 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 1.5 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2023 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session
California had been called "the great exception" and "America, only more so." Yet few of us pay attention to its distinctive traits and to its effects beyond our borders. California may be "a state of mind," but it is also the most dynamic place in the most powerful country in the world, and would be the 8th largest economy if it were a country. Its wealth has been built on mining, agriculture, industry, trade, and finance. Natural abundance and geographic advantage have played their parts, but the state's greatest resource has been its wealth and diversity of people, who have made it a center of technological and cultural innovation from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. Yet California has a dark side of exploitation and racialization. California: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 8 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course will introduce the student not only to ancient and modern Central Asia, but also to the role played by the region in the shaping of the history of neighboring regions and regimes. The course will outline the history, languages, ethnicities, religions, and archaeology of the region and will acquaint the student with the historical foundations of some of the political, social and economic challenges for contemporary post-Soviet Central Asian republics. Introduction to Central Asia: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for NE STUD C26 after completing GEOG 55, or NE STUD 26. A deficient grade in NE STUD C26 may be removed by taking NE STUD 26.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Formerly known as: Near Eastern Studies C26/Geography C55
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Summer 2021 Second 6 Week Session
In this course, students will observe and analyze how the American city has been built, experienced, imagined, and transformed. Using recent scholarship and primary sources, we will track the historical evolution of the city and assess change and continuity in major themes of urban life: race, gender, and difference, industry and labor, community and culture, and power and politics. These themes become increasingly intertwined throughout the course. We will focus on the particularities of place and the experiences of ordinary people but also seek to understand how broader political and economic processes shape the inequalities and opportunities that structure everyday life. The Urban Experience: Race, Class, Gender & The American City: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: •
Be familiar with important trends and forces behind the reshaping of historical geographies of race, class, and gender in the city;
•
Develop and eye for “looking at cities” and being able to ask questions about the processes that produce urban form;
•
Understand historical and contemporary patterns of social inclusion and exclusion in cities and be able to identify their underlying causes and effects;
•
Develop a theoretical understanding of race and ethnicity based on geographically- and historically-specific accounts of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx, and European Americans;
•
In addition to geographical inquiry, identify and explore approaches and insights from a range of fields, including political economy and cultural studies.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course examines global warming as both a geophysical and social issue. We will introduce the physical science that explains the problem, from the basic concepts of climate (carbon cycle, greenhouse effect, climate feedbacks) through to the models that project future climate changes and their impacts. Social scientific perspectives will cover the history of climate science, the geographical and political-economic implications of fossil fuels for industrial production, and the regulatory and ethical challenges posed by the current and prospective impacts of global warming. We will provide students with a solid understanding & information base with which to analyze and evaluate ongoing developments and debates surrounding climate change. Global Warming: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Summer 2024 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2024
This course examines the distinct but ill-defined San Francisco Bay Area. Our approach will be neither to simply learn about the individual places that compose the Bay Area nor to study a succession of detached periods of development. Instead, we will think critically about the creations, contestations, and transformations of Bay Area spaces—landscapes, communities, neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, and the metropolitan region. Topics include indigenous geographies, colonialism, industrialization and economic geography, cities and suburbs, gentrification and displacement, regional racial formation and place-based identities, and resistance and rebellion. The Bay Area: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
This course offers an introduction to the increasingly diverse range of geospatial technologies and tools including but not limited to geographical information systems (GIS). Merging theoretical concepts with technical instruction, students will develop critical knowledge and skills in web-mapping, geographic information science and cartography, including how these tools take on and reinforce fundamental geographical concepts and shape our lives, our environments and, increasingly, our futures. An Introduction to Geospatial Technologies: Mapping, Space and Power: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Design a map using cartographic insights into socioecological structures to reflect on our social position in the world and our spatial understanding of it. Develop a critical appraisal of mapping techniques and representation by investigating key theories, concepts, and histories of cartography technologies and exploring how maps constantly change yet produce worlds at the virtual and real intersections. Develop the skills to contrast diverse geospatial representation tools and to produce and design a map for our portfolio using core concepts in cartography, such as projections, coordinate systems, symbology, basic spatial analysis, and mapping design. Examine the fundamental criticisms of the intersection of power and cartographic technologies to question their implications for the development of geographic perspectives, ways of understanding, and ways of influencing the world. Reflect upon the ethical issues of representation, data collection, and caring in our cartographic projects.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 8 Week Session
An introduction to the increasingly diverse range of geospatial technologies and tools including but not limited to geographical information systems (GIS). Via a mix of lecture and lab-based instruction, students will develop knowledge and skills in web-mapping and GIS. How these tools are used to represent fundamental geographic concepts, and the wider socioeconomic context of these technologies will also be explored. Digital Worlds: An Introduction to Geospatial Technologies: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 8 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course introduces students to the many kinds of qualitative and quantitative information, data, and evidence that geographers use across the range of fields of study within geography, and to methods for collecting and analyzing these kinds of information. Data, Evidence, and Methods in Geographic Inquiry: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: 1. Identifying, compiling, and working with qualitative and quantitative data types that are relevant to the main fields within geography through field and library / archive research methods.
2. Generating research questions – What is where? Who is where? Asking when (history); asking why (explanation); asking how: processes, relations, and interactions.
3. Using one’s research questions to explore, propose, hypothesize, characterize, analyze, explain, demonstrate, refute, adapt, and finalize one’s findings.
4. Gaining proficiency in using archival sources of information; primary documents.
5. Gaining conceptual and empirical familiarity with core meta-concepts in geography,
and reading and interpreting humanized and biophysical landscapes.
6. Engaging change over space in geographic inquiry; working with temporal change.
7. Reading critically and characterizing a reading for the WHAT, the SO WHAT and the NOW WHAT of a reading.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2020
Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores. Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: At discretion of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 5 weeks - 3-6 hours of seminar per week 10 weeks - 1.5-3 hours of seminar per week 15 weeks - 1-2 hours of seminar per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 2.5-5 hours of seminar per week 8 weeks - 1.5-3.5 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: The grading option will be decided by the instructor when the class is offered. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2022
From mapping protests to the polar ice caps, colonialism to crises, board games to the baroque, this course offers an introduction to critical cartography and the politics of maps. Broadly centered on the contemporary carto-politics of the Pacific, each lecture focuses on a different field of mapping - such as protest mapping, ocean mapping or star mapping - comparing the techniques and conceptual underpinnings of cartography as a representational tool. It explores the way in which maps continue to reflect and shape our worlds, how they are used as tools for both description and argumentation across arts, science, engineering and the humanities. Mapping: Space, Cartography and Power: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 2 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Data science methods are increasingly important in geography and earth science. This course introduces some of the particular challenges of working with spatial data arising from characteristics specific to such data. These issues will be explored in a series of modules deploying data science methods to investigate contemporary topics in geography and earth science, relating to climate science, hydrology, population census and remote sensing of environment. No prior knowledge is assumed or expected. Data Science Applications in Geography: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 7 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Lectures and small group discussion focusing on topics of interest that vary from semester to semester. Directed Group Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of directed group study per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 1-4 hours of directed group study per week 8 weeks - 1-4 hours of directed group study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 1979, Fall 1967
Field course in the cultural geography. Using the landscape as our reference, we will explore the historical transformation of Cuban cities, town, and countryside from colonial times up to the present. Focus our exploration through two particular perspectives: attention to production in key sectors of the Cuban economy at different historical moments, and the ways their attendant forms of labor, ownership, technology, and trade shape the cultural landscape. The other major point of reference for this course is representations of Cuba as a place: what has Cuba stood for over time, to Cubans and to outsiders, and how have these stories played out in the forms and functions of the Cuban land Field Study of Cuba: Landscapes of Power, Production, Promise: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 15 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2022
Taught by faculty from the Departments of Art Practice, Geography, and History of Art, this Big Ideas course is a space where we collectively study, think, and make art about the cataclysmic ecological crises that threaten our planet today. Examining possible notions of the animal, the botanic, the oceanic, the geologic, and the atmospheric, among other themes, the course prompts embodied responses to this urgent moment through complex, experimental, scholarly, and practice-based interventions. The aim is to read human interactions with the planet in relation to the past, present, and future of earthly environments, as shaped by historical processes, resonances, interruptions, and movements. Art and Ecology: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: - Developing knowledge of the relationship between art, architecture, urban planning, cinema, and the natural environment
- Developing knowledge of climate change and global warming as it relates to environmental studies
- Developing the vocabulary and skills to make ecologically-informed decisions in life
- Developing skills for critical reading, research, writing, and art making
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2011, Spring 2002, Fall 2000
Since the late 1990s, Oakland has experienced considerable racial and economic restructuring. Oakland’s formerly prominent Black population has dwindled precipitously, as the city lost nearly 25% of its Black population since 2010. Cultural institutions, like churches, barbershops, blues clubs, and restaurants that once served its vast working-class population were replaced by trendy shops and hipster outlets. Students will engage the sense of loss and possibility arising in the city as they participate in a series of in-class workshops to learn various field methods. They will also work in neighborhoods with community leaders and groups to document residents’ valued places and how these places have changed over time.
Prerequisites: Students that register for Geog 104 during Summer Session are required to to register and take Geog 105 during the same Summer Session simultaneously. The courses are co-requisite
Hours & Format
Summer: 3 weeks - 15 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Black Geographies considers the concept of geography to examine multiple orientations through engaging critical race, black feminist, diaspora and queer studies. The course covers approaches to the geographical categorization of blackness through two organizing frameworks. The first, the ‘black geographic,’ ‘geography’ serves as a productive analytic for examining the lived experiences, conceptual limits, and theoretical purchase of blackness through the reading of some seminal and contemporary texts by black geographers. The second, ‘geographic blackness,’ considers how blackness as a modality of analysis gives insight and shape to the discipline of geography through texts by non-geographers that engage or invoke geographic themes. Black Geographic Thought: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Students that register for Geog 105 during Summer Session are required to to register and take Geog 104 during the same Summer Session simultaneously. The courses are co-requisite
Hours & Format
Summer: 3 weeks - 15 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 1996, Spring 1992
This experiential undergraduate seminar seeks to interrupt traditional managerial discourses about waste that view it as a technocratic problem and instead understand waste as deeply embedded in society, culture, and politics. In this class we will explore the myriad sociocultural, political, and economic processes on “the problem of waste” and also open up the classroom setting to an intimate and immersive engagement with the various lived experiences of people whom inhabit and are entangled ‘with/in/by waste’. To do so, the course combines weekly seminar discussions of key academic texts, supplemented with three ‘discovery experiences’ that speak to the multiple socio-political workings of waste.
Course Objectives: • To critically reflect upon the creation and destruction of value through examining discourses and practices of waste.
• To explore concepts and histories of development in a diverse set of contexts through a close examination of the politics of consumption and disposal.
• To better understand questions of sustainability, urban ecological design, and people’s relationship to nature in the city through unpacking our relationship to trash.
• To consider the role of stigmatized labor in constructing and upholding gender, race, and class difference.
• To consider our own practices of consumption and waste through examining the specific waste geographies of the Bay Area.
• To explore a set of social movements and artistic practices derived from the creative power of waste.
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for GEOG 107 after completing GEOG 107. A deficient grade in GEOG 107 may be removed by taking GEOG 107.
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Summer 2021 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 1999 10 Week Session
This course surveys the historical relationship between fossil fuels and the capitalist economy. Beginning with the origin of intensive fossil fuel use in the early modern world, and then moving through the industrial epochs of coal and then oil, this course asks how have fossil fuels shaped the trajectory of our modern economic world? Students will investigate the broad, structural impact these resources have had on labor relations, economic development, culture, the environment, politics, and more. Framed around the current, contested transition off of coal, oil, and gas, this course also asks what the future of fossil fuels look like. Will we disentangle ourselves from these sources of energy – what does the future hold? Geographies of Energy: The Rise and Fall of the Fossil Fuel Economy: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Cultivate an understanding of the relationship of fossil fuels and energy, more broadly, to the geographic and historic development of the modern economy. Familiarize students with debates about the relationship of energy to the origin of capitalism. Develop students’ understanding of the complex impacts of the advent of both coal and oil. Promote a fundamental understanding of how these resources are extracted, and the conflicts and difficulties surrounding their production. Introduce students to theoretical debates about resource crises that developed in the 1970s. Examine, in detail, the conflict today to end fossil fuels: the barriers in the way, the political actors involved, and the economic complexities of the transition. Students will also participate in a short research project that will encourage source-finding, thesis development, and relational thinking across disciplines.
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for GEOG 108 after completing GEOG 108. A deficient grade in GEOG 108 may be removed by taking GEOG 108.
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
This course examines the fundamentally geographic nature of our current, historically unique system of material reproduction—capitalism—and how capitalist logics have shaped places and forms of life over the course of the system’s growth and change. We will explore how capitalist processes shape the rise (and inevitable fall) of places, techniques, social worlds, and divisions of labor, and pay close attention to the power relations and spatial organization that accompany them. The course provides a grounding in critical perspectives such as the Marxian, Black radical, and feminist traditions to equip students with theoretical tools to understand and interpret the spatiality of contemporary capitalism. Critical Economic Geographies: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Students who engage meaningfully with this course will be able to successfully: use texts to explain and discuss key concepts and theories in economic geography, including their history and relevance to specific places; draw on theories and concepts from economic geography to analyze contemporary capitalism; critically reflect on economic geography as a discipline; use a range of media to produce economic geographic knowledge for a lay audience; and provide critical peer feedback on work in development and submitted work.
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 20 or prior courses in economic or regional development strongly suggested
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course examines whether the convergence between the ‘new Right’ and the ‘new Left’ has successfully addressed the central challenge of contemporary global development studies. It asks students to assess the multiple, nonlinear, and interconnected paths of change in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East that are now taking place. It explores the context of intensified global integration and capitalist development. Students will consider what changes in this context mean for larger social change, especially given ongoing global economic crises and rapidly evolving relations. Global Development: Theory, History, Geography: Read More [+]
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This writing-intensive course engages all fields of inquiry and forms of evidence in the geographies of climate change. Course topics include impacts on human and biophysical systems; mitigation and adaptation; global, regional and local policy efforts; gender and climate; and environmental justice and human rights. Regional and historical approaches underlie all topics.
Students will use common rhetorical strategies in writing; trans-disciplinary forms of evidence for characterizing, analyzing, narrating and explaining; additional focus on the arguments, evidence, and rhetorical strategies that climate skeptics use. Includes a research project. Open to non-majors.
Student Learning Outcomes: 1.
Using writing for understanding, characterizing, synthesizing, questioning, and communicating with academic, civic, and practitioner audiences;
2.
Critical and tactical reading; summarizing and evaluating peer-reviewed articles, policy reports, and narratives, among others;
3.
Drafting, revising, and finalizing thesis-driven writing that uses appropriate forms of evidence, with attention to grammar conventions;
4.
Peer assessment, editing, and critique of drafts, including for grammar conventions;
5.
Collaborating on shared research activities;
6.
Creating a research topic from scratch, including research questions and a research proposal; compiling, analyzing, integrating, and communicating research findings;
7.
Using library and online research tools, including archival materials; assessing the veracity of information obtained from source materials; documenting sources using standard bibliographic and citation formats.
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2015, Fall 2013
Postcolonial studies focus on how processes of colonialism/imperialism continue even after the formal dissolution of empire. A central argument of this course is that critical human geography can make important contributions to understanding the interconnections between forces at play in different parts of the world. Drawing on concepts of space, place, culture, power, and difference, its purpose is to provide a set of tools for grappling with the conditions in which we find ourselves, and for thinking about the possibilities for social change. Postcolonial Geographies: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 4 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2020
This course explores historical, cultural, and socio-economic geographies of cities, city life, and the organization of metropolitan political power. It is primarily focused on the U.S., but will draw on select examples from abroad. We will investigate urbanization as a general process and the resulting physical, social, cultural, and political economic forms of cities and examine the ways that cities have addressed tensions emerging from segregation and urban renewal. We will also look at both the ways in which social inequality is reinforced through the politics, policies, and design of the built environment as well as strategies for fostering and nurturing inclusive and equitable urban spaces through city design and policy. Urban Sites and City Life: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives:
•
Be familiar with important trends and forces behind the reshaping of geographies of race, class, and gender in the city today;
•
Engage thoughtfully, respectfully, and honestly with community residents and other students around issues of race, urban inequality, and cultural difference;
•
Demonstrate self-reflexivity with regard to the ways in which issues of race and inequality affect their own ideas about and experiences of urban space;
•
Develop and eye for “looking at cities” and being able to ask questions about the processes that produce urban form;
•
Understand historical and contemporary patterns of social inclusion and exclusion in cities and be able to identify their underlying causes and effects;
•
Understand how local experiences and conditions of urban life are affected by broader social, economic, and political processes including industrialization, globalization, and economic restructuring of cities.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2014, Spring 2010, Spring 2009
The American city, palimpsest of a nation. It all comes together in the modern metropolis: economy, society, politics, culture, and geography. Cities as the economic engines of capitalism, centers of industry, finance, business, consumption, and innovation. Cities as political powers and political pawns, and the government of cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. Cities as magnificent constructs, built of concrete, credit and land rents, from skyscrapers to housing tracts, freeways to shopping malls, airports to open spaces. Cities as landscapes of social division by class, race and nationality, and the turf battles from mean ghetto streets to the hideaways of privilege. The American City: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023
This is a practice-based course in which students will record, edit, and produce audio works that document and interpret the built environment and people in public places throughout Oakland and Berkeley. Through the process of making location recordings, analyzing those recordings, composing them into autonomous works, and critiquing them along the way, this course will engage with questions of how sound can help us understand the people we encounter and the spaces we move through everyday. Sonic Geographies: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 8 hours of fieldwork per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
What makes a film geographical? How can we explore humans’ relationships to their environment through sound and image? How might we make nonfiction films which foreground place and give it actual agency and voice? How can we use documentary film practices to depict place, culture, society, gesture, movement, rhythm and flow in new and exciting ways? This is a production workshop where each student will conceptualize, shoot, and edit one short documentary film project that centralizes some aspect/s of geographic thought. This course is geared towards first time filmmakers. All film projects must fit the theme designated by the instructor, per term. Geographic Film Production: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Students will work in small crews and gain direct experience with pre-production, camera operation, sound recording, lighting, producing, directing, and all phases of post-production. In the end, you will have the confidence and knowledge to conceptualize and actualize a short, nonfiction film to professional standards.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1.5 hours of lecture and 2.5 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2020
This course explores oceanic connections, movements, livelihoods, developments and imaginations in the modern world. We read the oceanic novel Moby Dick and think across themes including the geography of the Mediterranean, the riotous Atlantic, the imperial Pacific, the anticolonial Caribbean and the Muslim Indian Ocean; and we look at ports, containers, oceanic infrastructure and precarious marine livelihoods today. We read thinkers from our oceanic planet to imagine an oceanic way of thinking. Ocean Worlds: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: To understand oceanic connections in the modern world, and to develop skills in human geographic thinking, writing and communication.
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for GEOG 129 after completing GEOG 129. A deficient grade in GEOG 129 may be removed by taking GEOG 129.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2022
How do human populations organize and alter natural resources and ecosystems to produce food? The role of agriculture in the world economy, national development, and environmental degradation in the Global North and the Global South. The origins of scarcity and abundance, population growth, hunger and obesity, and poverty. Food and the Environment: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture and 2.5 hours of discussion per week 8 weeks - 6 hours of lecture and 2 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Summer 2024 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2023 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session
How do human populations organize and alter natural resources and ecosystems to produce food? The role of agriculture in the world economy, national development, and environmental degradation in the Global North and the Global South. The origins of scarcity and abundance, population growth, hunger and obesity, and poverty. Food and the Environment: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week 8 weeks - 5.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2018, Spring 2016
Distribution, dynamics, and use of water resources in the global environment. Water scarcity, water rights, and water wars. The terrestrial hydrologic cycle. Contemporary environmental issues in water resource management, including droughts, floods, saltwater intrusion, water contamination and remediation, river restoration, hydraulic fracturing, dams, and engineering of waterways. The role of water in ecosystem processes and geomorphology. How water resources are measured and monitored. Basic water resource calculations. Effects of climate change on water quantity, quality, and timing. Water Resources and the Environment: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
A quantitative introduction to the hydrology of the terrestrial environment including lower atmosphere, watersheds, lakes, and streams. All aspects of the hydrologic cycle, including precipitation, infiltration, evapotranspiration, overland flow, streamflow, and groundwater flow. Chemistry and dating of groundwater and surface water. Development of quantitative insights through problem solving and use of simple models. This course requires one field experiment and several group computer lab assignments. Terrestrial Hydrology: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites:CHEM 1A, MATH 1A, MATH 1B, and PHYSICS 7A; or consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
Conceptualizing global environmental problems is difficult because of the complexity of the issues, the magnitude of the problems, and the different time scales of action versus reaction. These issues apply both to the natural earth system as well as human societies. This course will examine the scientific basis underlying the largest environmental threats, and then reframe the issues to explore the societal basis of those problems. Class is not open to freshmen. Top Ten Global Environmental Problems: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Geography 40, ESPM 15, or equivalent
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Political factors affecting ecological conditions in the Third World. Topics include environmental degradation, migrations, agricultural production, role of international aid, divergence in standard of living, political power, participation and decision making, access to resources, global environmental policies and treaties, political strife and war. Global Environmental Politics: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020
This course examines the processes that determine the structure and circulation of the Earth's atmosphere and ocean, and how they control regional and global climate. The approach is deductive rather than descriptive: to determine the properties and behavior of the atmosphere and ocean based on the laws of physics and fluid dynamics. Topics will include interaction between radiation and atmospheric composition; the role of water in the energy and radiation balance; governing equations for atmospheric and oceanic motion, mass conservation, and thermodynamic energy balance; geostrophic flow, quasigeostrophic motion, baroclinic instability, and dynamics of extratropical cyclones and wind-driven ocean gyres. Atmosphere, Ocean, and Climate Dynamics: Read More [+]
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Understanding the physical characteristics of the Earth's surface, and the processes active on it, is essential for maintaining the long-term health of the environment, and for appreciating the unique, defining qualities of geographic regions. In this course, we build an understanding of global tectonics, rivers, hillslopes, and coastlines and discover how these act in concert with the underlying geologic framework to produce the magnificent landscapes of our planet. Through our review of formative processes, we learn how physical landscapes change and are susceptible to human modifications, which are often unintentional. Physical Landscapes: Process and Form: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 1 or equivalent
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
In this course we review the physical landscapes and surface processes in extreme environments: hot arid regions, glacial and periglacial landscapes, and karst terrane. Using this knowledge, plus an understanding of tectonics and temperate watersheds (gained from prerequisite courses), we explore how unique combinations of geomorphic processes acting on tectonic and structural provinces have created the spectacular and diverse landscapes of North America. Regions to be explored include the Colorado Plateau, Sierra Nevada, North Cascades, Northern and Southern Rockies, Great Plains, Appalachian Highlands, and Mississippi Delta. Physiography and Geomorphologic Extremes: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 140A (formerly 140), or Geology 117, or equivalent
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
The course presents a conceptual basis for understanding of the workings of the global climate system, and how they conspire to bring about change. The goal is to give the student a climate dynamics basis for understanding global climate change. Covered topics include observations of the climate system; the earth's energy balance; atmospheric radiative transfer; atmospheric circulation; the role of the ocean and the cryosphere; climate variability on various timescales; climate feedbacks and climate change. Global Climate Variability and Change: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor needed if student has not taken an introductory-level undergraduate physics course
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2022
How does the chemical makeup of Earth make it suitable for life? And how does life in turn alter the chemistry of our planet? Biogeochemistry is the field of science that explores the imprint of biota (including humans) on the chemistry of the ocean, land and atmosphere. This interdisciplinary field addresses global problems, including climate change feedbacks, air quality, land use change, and marine ecosystem health. We will provide an overview of the major biogeochemical cycles, discuss the biogeochemistry of major ecosystems, and introduce the major biogeochemical questions being asked today. We also cover measurement techniques, including hands-on activities to introduce students to experimental methods and data analysis. Global Change Biogeochemistry: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Chemistry 1A or equivalent
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2011, Fall 2008
Weather development in relation to different scales of atmospheric circulation including analysis and forecasting with examples from the Northeastern Pacific-Western North American area. Principles of Meteorology: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2013
This course explores how digital platforms are reshaping urban and rural geographies. Theories of city and country, the history and current state of platforms, and connections between technology and social hierarchies are the foundation for this course. We examine smart cities and rural data centers, logistics landscapes, gig work and ‘the hustle economy’, property technologies and gentrification, and digitized policing and carceral geographies. Students will critically reflect on notions of city and country and the role of technology in producing urban-rural landscapes, examine the uneven socio-spatial consequences of technology, and reflect on how to build digital geographies that refuse domination, extraction, and predatory inclusion. Platform Geographies: Read More [+]
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternate method of final assessment during regularly scheduled final exam group (e.g., presentation, final project, etc.).
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2018, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
For undergraduates interested in improving their ability to communicate their scientific knowledge by teaching ocean science in elementary schools or science centers/aquariums. The course will combine instruction in inquiry-based teaching methods and learning pedagogy with six weeks of supervised teaching experience in a local school classroom or the Lawrence Hall of Science with a partner. Thus, students will practice communicating scientific knowledge and receive mentoring on how to improve their presentations. Communicating Ocean Science: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: One course in introductory biology, geology, chemistry, physics, or marine science required and interest in ocean science; junior, senior, or graduate standing; consent of instructor required for sophomores
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of fieldwork per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Instructor: Rhew
Formerly known as: Earth and Planetary Science C100/Geography C146/Integrative Biology C100
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2018
For upper division undergraduate students interested in improving their conceptual understanding of climate science and climate change through engaging in activities, demonstrations, and discussions, while also developing their science communication skills to advance the public’s climate literacy. The course will combine science content, active teaching and learning methods based on how people learn, and how to engage in effective interactions. Communicating Climate Science: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: As a result of this course, students will be able to 1) describe and use models to illustrate the processes, interactions and mechanisms contributing to climate change; 2) demonstrate an understanding of how people learn, and the importance and impact of social, cultural and worldview belief systems on behavior related to climate change, through effectively communicating ideas and engaging in meaningful discussions with diverse, non-expert audiences.
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in climate change science
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
The course will provide a historical background for the field of biogeography and the ecological foundations needed to understand the distribution and abundance of species and their changes over time. It will also discuss developing technologies (including genomic tools and environmental models) together with the availability of big data and increasingly sophisticated analytical tools to examine the relevance of the field to global change biology, conservation, and invasion biology, as well as sustainable food systems and ecosystem services. Biogeography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: BIO 1B
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
This course provides a very basic description of atmospheric physics and dynamics at the large scale, followed by region-specific climate systems and response. We examine the inter-relationships between the role of climate variations and change to impacts, risk and adaptation. Each week's reading will be integrated into class participation with examples from recent weather events. Class begins with a brief weather review that focuses on a specific geographic region, followed by the topic of the day, a break, and class discussion of weather events and impacts related to the topic. There will be four homework sets, four quizzes, a mid-term and final exam. Climates of the World: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: This course is geared to students in the social sciences with an interest in understanding climate processes and climate change. The objectives are to provide a foundation in basic meteorological processes derived primarily from conservation laws. Through repetition with applications to the real world and reinforcement of concepts students with little mathematical training will grasp the main concepts and apply their understanding to understand climate trends.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Climate impacts and risk analysis is the study of weather-related catastrophes such as heat waves, floods, droughts, fires, and tropical cyclones, and builds on material from GEOG 149A: Climates of the World.
We will review how large-scale climate and local weather patterns set up, learn detection and attribution to climate change, risk probabilities and the types of impacts incurred. Climate Impacts and Risk Analysis: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: The objective is to provide an understanding of climate attribution, risk probabilities and socio-economic and ecological impacts of climate change and strategies of risk reduction. Through class discussions and homework assignments students will learn of historic climate catastrophes, how different societies have responded and what we can learn from these responses in terms of building climate resilience. We will go through simplified physical processes associated with recent climate events and delve into the details of how they occur and to what extent climate extremes are trending. One of the important learning objectives is to provide dual learning, that is, I propose to offer upper level undergraduates that lack sufficient mathematics and physics, while at the same provide graduate students and atmospheric science/statistics undergraduates a detailed understanding of climate impacts and risks. Graduate students have an augmented set of homework problems.
Student Learning Outcomes: An expected learning outcome is the ability to articulate climate risk with clear descriptions of mechanisms of change, degree and likelihood of impacts and methods of risk reduction. This class and Climates of the World will essentially be a two-semester sequence that (1) introduces students to the basic concepts of meteorology, climate change, climate extremes and (2) the types of risks and strategies that are currently being implemented and are in planning stages.
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Geog 149A or equivalent course
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
An in-depth study of taxonomy, with a special focus on plants. We will first learn how plants are classified and how they fit into the tree of life, and what practical challenges exist for current practitioners of botany. Next, we will study the history of the ideas underlying classification and their connections to colonial, extractivist empire-building activities since Linnaeus. Finally, we will work to create a new taxonomy that acknowledges and imagines other relationships with plants. Post-Apocalyptic Botany: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for GEOG C154 after completing GEOG 154. A deficient grade in GEOG C154 may be removed by taking GEOG 154.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2011, Summer 1997 10 Week Session
This course examines the the spatial configurations of inequality and poverty and their relationship to race through an analysis of the historical, theoretical and ethnographic conceptualizations, practices, and lived experiences of that relationship. The course will cover the topics of race, space, and inequality through four interwoven thematic lenses of formation, implementation, normalization, and resistances. Race, Space, and Inequality: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
This course examines the the spatial configurations of inequality and poverty and their relationship to race through an analysis of the historical, theoretical and ethnographic conceptualizations, practices, and lived experiences of that relationship. The course will cover the topics of race, space, and inequality through four interwoven thematic lenses of formation, implementation, normalization, and resistances. Race, Space, and Inequality: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course seeks to trace the rise of the anthropogenic epoch as a political epistemology, changing material milieu, and amorphous and contested political signifier. The notion of the Anthropocene challenges the very boundaries of nature and culture that have plagued and defined modernity. Natural forces and inanimate objects from storms and bodies, ocean flows and river currents, soil layers and chemical reactions are more and more commonly understood as always already natural/cultural. What are the differential ways that the universal categories of the human at the heart of the concept of the Anthropocene mask the differential responsibility and liability for these epochal changes?
Terms offered: Spring 2014, Fall 2012, Spring 2011, Fall 2004
A comparative survey of the peoples and cultures of the seven countries of the Central American Isthmus from a historical and contemporary perspective. Central American Peoples and Cultures: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
The southern border--from California to Florida--is the longest physical divide between the First and Third Worlds. This course will examine the border as a distinct landscape where North-South relations take on a specific spatial and cultural dimension, and as a region which has been the testing ground for such issues as free trade, immigration, and ethnic politics. The Southern Border: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Upper division standing
Requirements this course satisfies: Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 1-1 hours of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 1997, Spring 1996
Introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings--homes, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts and regions. Encourages students to read landscapes as records of past and present social relations, and to speculate for themselves about cultural meaning. American Cultural Landscapes: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
What is America as a landscape and a place, and how do we know it when we see it? This course seeks to address such questions, to introduce ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings—homes, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts, and regions. It does so through the lens of cultural geography, an interdisciplinary practice that developed, in part, here at Berkeley. Our goal in this course is thus twofold: First, to develop literacy in the role of space and place in American culture, and second to develop a working knowledge of cultural geography as a practice. The American Landscape: Place, Power and Culture: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: . To introduce students to the central themes and practices of cultural geography; To explore the interaction of landscape (space, place, and the built environment) with American economics, politics, and culture; To reinforce and further develop advanced skills in seeing, thinking, researching, and writing. To teach students how to “read” landscapes as records of past and present social relations, and to form their own speculations from evidence about the cultural meanings of those landscapes; Upon completion of this course, it is hoped that students will appreciate the way that the American landscape both shapes and is given shape by economics, politics and culture. In studying practices of cultural geography, as well as undertaking their own experiments through course assignments, students will emerge with a better grasp of how to examine landscapes in an intellectually rigorous manner, and how to use the landscape as evidence for scholarship.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 4 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Fall 2011
Introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings-- houses, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts, and regions. Encourages students to read landscapes as records of past and present social relations and to speculate for themselves about cultural meaning. American Cultural Landscapes, 1600 to 1900: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
Introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings--homes, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts, and regions. Encourages students to read landscapes as records of past and present social relations, and to speculate for themselves about cultural meaning. American Cultural Landscapes, 1900 to Present: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 1996
Maps are important tools for our daily activities and spatial imaginaries; however, the ways in which official and dominant Western maps organized the information about the world occludes other ways of knowing territories. How are these “other” geographies represented? How are maps re-designed and appropriated to visualize different spatialities? In this course, students will be introduced to key themes and design practices in social cartography in Latin America. These reflect on collective or individual mapping practices to represent and increase the visibility of social issues and ways of knowing and being in this region. Previous knowledge of maps not required. Rethinking Latin American Geographies Through Social Mapping: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Become familiar with a range of theoretical and practical perspectives on social mapping in the Latin American context. Contrast written materials about maps and visual representations from a variety of Latin American countries. Develop a critical approach to Western/hegemonic mapping and cartography. Develop a toolkit of key terms and methodologies in social mapping that will allow them to work collaboratively utilizing an interdisciplinary perspective. Examine the diversity of geographies and ways of understanding territories, landscapes, and space through communities and social movements in the region.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternate method of final assessment during regularly scheduled final exam group (e.g., presentation, final project, etc.).
Terms offered: Spring 1997, Fall 1995, Fall 1993
This course explores various scales of climate impacts, mitigation, and adaptation from the global to the local through a lens of climate justice, geographies of race, and political ecology. We will explore climate plans such as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. National Climate Assessment while also taking a close look at examples of tribal and community-based climate mitigation projects. Students will examine the similarities and differences in climate decision-making and actions at various scales. Students will learn the interconnections between climate processes and the complexities that shape our social and political systems. We will then apply this lens to an analysis of sites across California and beyond. Climate and Communities: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Equip students with the ability think critically about social, political, economic, and environmental processes Introduce concepts and themes fundamental to understanding of social, political, and environmental aspects of climate change assessments, mitigation, and adaptation Introduce concepts, themes, and methodologies related to climate justice and geographies of race Promote critical thinking about experiences of climate change and responses to climate change
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course focuses on four issues in contemporary China: (1) the transformation of the socialist state, (2) the environmental politics, (3) the interplay of gender and class in the transitional society, (4) urban expansion and the changing rural-urban dynamics, and (5) global China. Each of these issues will be examined with reference to critical theories of development and histories of China's modernization. This is a lecture course designed mainly for upper level undergraduate students with preliminary background in East Asian-Chinese studies or development studies. Global China: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2008, Spring 2006
This course offers a geographic survey of race and ethnicity across Latin America, including Californiam, Mesoamerica, Brazil, the Andes, and the Caribbean. The course draws from academic scholarship, creative non-fiction, podcasts, and film in order to weave together critical voices from across the region that speak to racial and ethnic identities. Students will come away with a stronger knowledge of the region’s history and geography, as well as key debates on political, economic and cultural topics concerning Latin American peoples and intellectual movements. Racial and Ethnic Geographies of Latin America: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: Through course materials, lectures and activities, students will acquire theoretical foundations for understanding historical and contemporary cultural geography as well as debates over race, ethnicity and social justice in the Western Hemisphere
Through course materials, lectures and class activities, students will develop a historical and geographical understanding of racial and ethnic formation in Latin America
Through the course assignments, students will develop and demonstrate analytical engagement with course topics and practice written argumentation and comparative analysis
Through the final course assignment, students will further develop their theoretical and conceptual engagement with the course topics while applying independent research methods and a choice of multiple genres to execute a written and/or visual project
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for GEOG 165 after completing GEOG 165. A deficient grade in GEOG 165 may be removed by taking GEOG 165.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course examines how today’s bounded geographies were shaped by racialized and regionalized discourse and practice, setting the foundation for contemporary struggles over political, economic and social identities along and across Latin America. Specifically, the course incorporates the study of the United States’ historical relationship with Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean in order to understand how these histories map onto the productions of borders, regimes of migration and citizenship, and movements that increasingly articulate a decolonial turn in intellectual thought and within political and social action.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course is designed to provide a vehicle for instructors to address a topic with which they are especially concerned; usually more restricted than the subject matter of a regular lecture course. Topics will vary with instructor. See departmental announcements. Special Topics in Geography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2016, Summer 2016 First 6 Week Session
This course is designed to provide a vehicle for instructors to address a topic in physical geography with which they are especially concerned; usually more restricted than the subject matter of a regular lecture course. Topics will vary with instructor. See departmental announcements. Special Topics in Physical Geography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: The grading option will be decided by the instructor when the class is offered. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2012, Fall 2011
This course is designed to provide a vehicle for instructors to address a topic in social geography with which they are especially concerned; usually more restricted than the subject matter of a regular lecture course. Topics will vary with instructor. See departmental announcements. Topics in Social Geography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit with instructor consent.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 4 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007
This course is designed to accommodate cross-listed courses offered through other departments, the content of which is applicable to geography majors. Content and unit values vary from course to course. Cross-listed Topics in Human Geography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
A reading and research seminar for undergraduate students. Topics will vary with instructor. Undergraduate Seminars: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit with instructor consent.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024
This course will introduce the ways race and racism are relevant to ecological processes and management through topics that broadly span both environmental and climate justice, while also exploring how we can understand non-dominant ways of knowing and relating to the environment, particularly focusing on Black and Indigenous ecologies and ecological relationships. In this course, students will learn the interconnections between ecological processes and the complexities that shape our social world. Students will learn how to apply a racial ecologies lens to the world around them. We will examine traditional and emerging directions in the fields of Political Ecology, Environmental and Climate Justice, Geographies of
race, and more. Racial Ecologies: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Equip students with the ability think critically about social, political, economic, and environmental processes Introduce concepts and themes fundamental to understanding of socio-ecological processes and relationships Introduce concepts, themes, and methodologies related to political ecologies and geographies of race Promote critical thinking about ecological landscapes which students interact with everyday
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternate method of final assessment during regularly scheduled final exam group (e.g., presentation, final project, etc.).
Terms offered: Fall 2016
In the environmental and biological sciences, one of the biggest challenges in transitioning from student to researcher is learning how to measure something without an off-the-shelf device. This course will provide the theoretical background and the practice of building a Gas Chromatograph (GC) system for environmental research. The first semester is for students who seek to develop fundamental skills in instrumental development and design. The second semester (c179b) is only open to those who have taken this first semester course and will entail the construction of a working gas chromatograph system. This class will be especially useful for students who wish to pursue research following graduation. GC-Maker Lab I: Skills and Theory: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Chem 3AL, or instructor permission
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2017
In the environmental and biological sciences, one of the biggest challenges in transitioning from student to researcher is learning how to measure something without an off-the-shelf device. This course will involve the actual building a gas chromatograph (GC) system for environmental research. In addition, we will provide the option of building a mini datalogging sensor for measuring basic environmental parameters using the Arduino platform. This course offered in the spring semester is only open to those who have taken this first semester course (c179A), which covers the fundamental skills required to undertake this project. This class is designed for upper division undergraduates to early graduate students. GC-Maker Lab II: Instrument development: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Chem 3AL, GC-Maker Lab I (fall semester)
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 6 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Field introduction to geomorphology, biogeography, and California landscapes. Students conduct field experiments and mapping exercises. Results of field projects are analyzed and presented as a technical report. Oral field reports are required for some trips. Field Methods for Physical Geography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 1 or equivalent, and consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 0 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
In this course, we will critically “read" urban landscapes in the Bay Area. Walking tours, on-site lectures, individual wanderings, and archival research will explore built environments, spatial histories, and broader patterns of urbanism in Berkeley, San Francisco, Emeryville, Oakland, Pleasanton, and beyond. At every juncture, we will consider the dynamic interrelationships between built form and everyday life, becoming attuned to the power of landscape to both express and suppress identities and opportunities. We will travel by BART and on foot (~3 miles of walking per class!) to pursue ways to think critically about the spaces we inhabit, what remains to be explored, and the contours of our future. Urban Field Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 8 hours of fieldwork per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Summer 2024 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session
In this course you will learn how to ‘read’ urban landscapes in Berkeley, San Francisco, Emeryville, Oakland, and Pleasanton. Walking tours, on-site lectures, and ongoing discussions will explore cultural landscapes, architecture, urban design, and Bay Area spatial histories. With close observations of local landscapes and historical geographies, you see in the particulars of the Bay Area general principles of American urbanization. And by combining these three elements—landscape, region, and urbanization—you will learn to appreciate the magnificent cacophony of places, the peculiar pleasures and struggles of the Bay Region, and the banal
beauty of ordinary landscapes. We will travel on foot and by BART. Undergrad and grad are welcome. Field Study of Buildings and Cities: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: The goal of this course is to introduce ways of seeing various building types, street and block forms, land use patterns, and other cultural features of the Bay Area as records of social relations and of repeating processes of American geographical history: cyclical periods of investment and disinvestment, migration and immigration, economic production and consumption, connection and disconnection, reinforcement of individual and social identities, as well as day-to-day maintenance and care
Hours & Format
Summer: 6 weeks - 7.5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course introduces the art, science and politics of making maps in a mediated world. Much of the course focuses on key theories, concepts, principles in map design, visualization and communication, while building deeper theoretical, critical and experimental skills needed for the challenges of the future. This includes theories of new media, the history of cartography, the impact of the internet on critical, Indigenous and counter- approaches to mapping, contemporary media and cartographic arts including the experimental, expressive and artistic, and the technicalities of visualizing quantitative data through (carto)graphic design. Cartographic Representation: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: Become familiar with studio-based peer feedback environments, teamwork in cartographic production and the importance of community in
cartographic production.
Demonstrate the ability to critically interpret and evaluate the ideological, political and technical aspects of historical and contemporary
cartography.
Develop key basic skills in producing print-based and web-based cartography, and be able to articulate the key technical and communicative
differences.
Have core competencies in a range of software including Adobe Creative Cloud, ArcGIS Online, Mapbox and basic HTML/CSS/JS coding.
Produce a final cartographic project using skills learned in the course by undertaking independent research, technical learning and collaborative feedback.
Understand cartographic rhetoric, and the power of maps as argumentative and decision-making devices.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course introduces the art, science and politics of making maps in a mediated world. Much of the course focuses on key theories, concepts, principles in map design, visualization and communication, while building deeper theoretical, critical and experimental skills needed for the challenges of the future. This includes theories of new media, the history of cartography, the impact of the internet on critical, Indigenous and counter- approaches to mapping, contemporary media and cartographic arts including the experimental, expressive and artistic, and the technicalities of visualizing quantitative data through (carto)graphic design. Cartographic Representation: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: Become familiar with studio-based peer feedback environments, teamwork in cartographic production and the importance of community in cartographic production.
Demonstrate the ability to critically interpret and evaluate the ideological, political and technical aspects of historical and contemporary cartography.
Develop key basic skills in producing print-based and web-based cartography, and be able to articulate the key technical and communicative differences.
Have core competencies in a range of software including Adobe Creative Cloud, ArcGIS Online, Mapbox and basic HTML/CSS/JS coding.
Produce a final cartographic project using skills learned in the course by undertaking independent research, technical learning and collaborative feedback.
Understand cartographic rhetoric, and the power of maps as argumentative and decision-making devices.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This lecture-lab course is focused on Earth system remote sensing applications, including a survey of methods and an accompanying lab. This first part of the course will cover general principles, image acquisition and interpretation, and analytical approaches. The second part will cover global change remote sensing applications that will include terrestrial ecosystems, Earth sciences, the hydrosphere, and human land-use. Earth System Remote Sensing: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 1.5 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Summer 1999 10 Week Session, Summer 1998 10 Week Session
This course will focus on the application of cartographic principles to the design of interactive web maps. We will explore the capabilities and limits of web tools for representing geographic data and examine how recent developments in geospatial technologies have influenced how we both use and produce maps. Students will create their own thematic web maps. Web Cartography: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 4 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Fall 2018, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
A spatial analytic approach to digital mapping and GIS. Given that recording the geolocation of scientific, business and social data is now routine, the question of what we can learn from the spatial aspect of data arises. This class looks at challenges in analyzing spatial data, particularly scale and spatial dependence. Various methods are considered such as hotspot detection, interpolation, and map overlay. The emphasis throughout is hands on and practical rather than theoretical.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course introduces the student to the rapidly expanding field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It addresses both theory and application and provides the student with a dynamic analytical framework within which temporal and spatial data and information is gathered, integrated, interpreted, and manipulated. It emphasizes a conceptual appreciation of GIS and offers an opportunity to apply some of those concepts to contemporary geographical and planning issues. Geographic Information Science: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Some computer experience
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3-3 hours of lecture and 1-2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2024
This is a practice-based course in which students will shoot and edit photographic works that document and interpret the landscape and people along San Pablo Avenue from Oakland to Hercules, CA. Through the process of making photographs, analyzing them, editing them into a body of work, and critiquing them along the way, this course will
engage with questions of how photography can help us understand the people we encounter and the spaces we move through everyday. Visual Geography: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: Have a deeper sense of the East Bay’s unique ethnic and racial diversity and it’s complicated history in regards to racial and spatial dynamics. Have a solid foundation in techniques and concepts used in visual geography and documentary photography. Learn a professional process for photographic editing, printing, and delivery. Shoot and edit photographs that express ideas about physical and human geography.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 9 hours of fieldwork per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 8 hours of fieldwork per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
Required for Honors in Geography. Students will write a thesis. One or two semesters, at the instructor's option; if two semesters, credit and grade to be awarded upon completion of the sequence. Honors Course: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Admission to Honors Program
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of independent study per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 2.5-10 hours of independent study per week 8 weeks - 1.5-7.5 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. This is part one of a year long series course. A provisional grade of IP (in progress) will be applied and later replaced with the final grade after completing part two of the series. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
Required for Honors in Geography. Students will write a thesis. One or two semesters, at the instructor's option; if two semesters, credit and grade to be awarded upon completion of the sequence. Honors Course: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Admission to Honors Program
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 1-4 hours of independent study per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 2.5-10 hours of independent study per week 8 weeks - 1.5-7.5 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. This is part two of a year long series course. Upon completion, the final grade will be applied to both parts of the series. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
Supervised experience in application of geography in off-campus organizations. Regular individual meetings with faculty sponsor and written reports required. Field Study in Geography: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 0 hours of independent study per week
Summer: 6 weeks - 1-4 hours of independent study per week 8 weeks - 1-5 hours of independent study per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Offered for pass/not pass grade only. Final exam not required.
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