Course Syllabus
GLOBAL CHANGE:
The Science of Sustainability - FALL 2017 SYLLABUS
Registration
Global Change – The Science of Sustainability, is taught every Fall term and is cross-listed in five different UM departments with the following course numbers: ENVIRON/BIOLOGY 110 and AOSS/EARTH/ENSCEN 171. Students are not required to register within the department of their concentration; this course holds Natural Science distribution credit for all cross-listings. If you are a senior you should be allowed to register – please contact the course director, George Kling (gwk@umich.edu) if you are having difficulties registering.
Lectures
Lectures meet from 12:10 (noon) to 1:00 pm Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in Angell Hall Auditorium C. The lecture begins promptly at 12:10, so please arrive early enough to get settled before this time. The first lecture is Wednesday, September 6th. There may also be important announcements at the beginning of lecture. Reading materials for the class will be available as presentation notes on your UM Canvas web site. We will review how to access the lecture slides, lecture notes, and lab materials in the first class and lab. You will need to login with your UM uniqname/password to access the Canvas site for this course (from the dropdown menu “Courses”). If you encounter any difficulties, you can contact the Canvas Help page or the course support staff (globalchange@umich.edu) immediately, as all students will be expected to check the site regularly for announcements and assignments – in the upper left “Account” button in Canvas, be sure to set your “Notifications” to receive emails. The posted webpages are not identical to the material presented in class; they offer additional reading and activities, while also connecting you to material on other web sites.
We use the UM-based “Active Learning Platform” web environment to allow students to follow along with the lecture slides and take notes or respond to questions asked in class (anonymous surveys). This environment will be described in detail in the first class of the semester.
Please bring your computers to each class.
THERE ARE NO REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS OR COURSEPACKS TO PURCHASE. Supplemental reading materials may occasionally be distributed in class and posted on Canvas. The only costs you will incur, if any, are for printing lecture notes and other web materials (your choice, you are not required to have hard-copies of materials). From time to time “homework” problems will be assigned during lecture – completion of the assignment usually requires only a brief amount of time outside of class to help reinforce key points made in lecture.
Lab/Discussion
Your presence at lab/discussion sessions is mandatory. The lab/discussion section meets for two hours each week in a computer classroom or a discussion classroom. LAB SECTIONS BEGIN ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th in your section's discussion classroom. Because most sections are full, you cannot change discussion sections unless you arrange with another student to change into your section – this can be arranged by the GSIs once classes begin.
The labs include a mixture of modeling exercises using the STELLA computer program (provided for you), and readings and discussions focusing on various topics relevant to the course themes. Lab time typically includes a brief review of lecture material (or exam material or past labs), and the remainder of the time is spent on the lab exercise or in discussion. Lab assignments are rarely finished during lab, and out-of-class work is usually required to complete the assignment. All assignments are submitted through Canvas.
Projects
There is one term project for this course, which will be a group research project presented in the final Discussion session. Students will organize themselves into teams of 3 to develop an implementation plan for a term project related to the course material. Suggestions for project topics and sample projects will be provided, but the choice will be left to each team with guidance from the lab instructors.
Tests
There will be two one-hour, in-class exams during the semester, each covering roughly 1/3rd of the course, and a 2-hr final that is cumulative (given on Friday, 15 December, 1:30-3:30 pm in our lecture classroom). The tests are given during the normal class meeting time, and will be comprised of a mixture of multiple choice and short-answer questions. Material from the lectures, labs, and required readings (both on-line and handouts) will be covered on exams. The final exam will emphasize material covered since the second midterm, but will also involve important concepts studied throughout the semester (i.e., ~20% of the final exam is cumulative).
The exam dates and times are posted at the start of term, so this information should not be a surprise to anyone. Check the final exam date (15 December) before buying a plane ticket to leave Ann Arbor for holiday break. We will only offer make-up exams for students who provide a written excuse or other formal evidence of emergencies, meaning an absence outside their immediate control (like illness). Absences for planned activities (such as sports events) are not considered emergencies, and arrangements should be made with the organizer of such activities to complete the test around the scheduled time.
Evaluation Activities
We are constantly trying to improve our Global Change course. All students are expected to participate in our evaluation activities, which will occur throughout the term and can be accessed from Canvas. Students who do not participate in these activities cannot receive the extra credit points for participation (see below). In addition, we use this information (no personal information) to improve our lecturing, our course management, and your ability to learn. Such activities are becoming more common in courses and are for your benefit, but you will have the chance to “opt out” if you do not wish to participate.
Grading
The class uses a point system for determining final grades as follows:
* Two in-class hourly exams: 100 points each
* One final exam: 150 points
* Lab/Discussion Sessions: 13 points each (hand in before next lab)
* Lecture Homework problems: 5 points each (hand in before next lab)
* Term Project: 125 points total (includes drafts, presentations, final documents)
“Self-tests” that are ungraded are offered as a link in Canvas, and we strongly encourage students to complete them for added review of the class material.
The total points are normalized for each section using a scale from 0-100, then a straight-scale for letter grades is applied as follows:
90.0-92.9, 93.0-95.9, 96.0 and up = A-, A, A+
80.0-82.9, 83.0-85.9, 86.0-89.9 = B-, B, B+
70.0-72.9, 73.0-75.9, 76.0-79.9 = C-, C, C+
60.0-62.9, 63.0-65.9, 66.0-69.9 = D-, D, D+
0.0-59.9 = E
Professors
George Kling, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
Catherine Badgley, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
GSIs
Jacqueline Popma, EEB Department, popmaj@umich.edu
Karl Romanowicz, EEB Department, kjromano@umich.edu
Bian Wang, EES Department, bianwang@umich.edu
Office Hours
GSI office hours are set for each section, and contact faculty for a mutually convenient time. There is an administrative mailbox for Global Change in 2534 CC Little Building.
Absences
We follow the College of LSA policies on excusing absences from class or lab, as described at this website: https://lsa.umich.edu/advising/policies-procedures/class-attendance.html
Academic Conduct: As you proceed through this course you may at times feel the pressure of course work, exams, lab assignments and reports. So much to do, and so little time! If you seriously fall behind in your work, you should talk to your GSI or the Instructor. We will try to be sensitive to your individual problems and help if we can, but to be fair to all students, we must still enforce deadlines and grade your performance by standards that apply to everyone.
Whatever happens, don't be tempted to cheat or plagiarize; it's not worth it, and the penalties are very severe. In the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A) there is a mandatory one-term suspension if you are found guilty of a major infraction of the Code of Academic Conduct, and two convictions result in expulsion from the University. In addition, you may receive a failing grade for the portion of the course in which the infraction occurred, or fail the entire course. We have course resources for students that help to better explain what plagiarism is, and how to avoid it in your class work.
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Link to Global Change Homepage
Download Full Syllabus Global_Change_Fall_2017_Syllabus.pdf
Course Summary:
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