• Home
• PIBBS Wiki
• PIBBS Notes
• Advisory Council
• Affiliated Faculty
• HHMI Interfaces Scholars
• Student Opportunities
  •       Focus Groups
  •       Enrichment Opportunities
  •       SEO Grant
  •       SEO Application
  •       SEO Awardees
• Courses
•    TiBBs
  •          F2008
  •          F2007
  •          F2006
•    SiBBs
  •          S2008
  •          S2007
•    CiT
  •          Human Ecology (F2007)
•    Courses of Interest
• Staff
• Contact
• Links
• Resources

PiBBs Course in Training

Perspectives in Human Ecology

Anthropology 450/550-031, Biology 402/502-031; 3 credits
FALL 2007
T & R 9:30am - 10:45am
Castetter 258
Oskar Burger*, William Burnside^ & Jordan Okie^
*Anthropology ^Biology

Syllabus (.pdf) (.doc) updated reading list available on class website
Class website/blogspot: human-macroecology.blogspot.com/
Email: humanmacroecology@gmail.com

This course is intended to give graduate students and senior-level undergraduates a deep understanding of large scale patterns and processes in human ecology. Students will view human ecology from the complementary perspectives of biogeography and macroecology, showing patterns across space and time, and system dynamics, focusing on ways energy, materials, and information are processed and transformed in social systems. The ways in which humans follow and alter broad-scale ecological patterns in time and space will be explored and potential explanations for these patterns will be examined. Participants will get a broad introduction to the associated literature as well as practice interpreting actual datasets through a research project. They will leave with a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary understanding of human ecology and with the intellectual tools to contribute to this blossoming field.

Course overview:

• Focus on large-scale patterns and processes in human ecology
• Interdisciplinary perspectives from
  1. biogeography and macroecology: showing patterns across space and time
  2. system dynamics, focusing on ways energy, materials, and information are processed and transformed in social systems
• Broad introduction to associated literature and practice interpreting actual datasets through a research project