Environmental health

Investigates how sustainability can be implemented in a variety of contexts including water, energy, nonrenewable resources, biodiversity, and urban policy, and also how it could be measured.

Students attend weekly seminar to discuss current issues in global sustainability. Weekly attendance at Global Sustainability Forum also is required. Seminar utilized to analyze forum presentations and to prepare senior research paper. Prepare/ write research paper under the direction of a faculty member. Prerequisites: Earth System Science 190A-B and satisfaction of the lower-division writing requirement.

Between 25-49% of the course content (e.g., readings, papers, tests, discussion or other assignments) focuses on at least one of the 13 sustainability criteria listed in the UCI sustainability curriculum definition.

Seminar and lecture, three hours. Explores basic topics in ecology and evolutionary biology and applications to agriculture, conservation, environmental issues, and public health. Format involves discussion of scientific journal articles and other readings, with focus on learning to evaluate scientific evidence. Prerequisite or corequisite: Biological Sciences E106.

Surveys economic aspects of natural resources, pollution, population, and the environment. Examines the causes of pollution, e.g., air, water, noise, toxic waste, and nonoptimal utilization of certain resources, e.g., fisheries; analysis of public polices regarding these problems. Emphasis on micro-economic aspects of environmental problems. Prerequisites: Economics 15A-B and 122A or equivalent; Economics 100A-B or 105A.

Lecture, three hours. Examination of contemporary water problems worldwide, with particular attention to the competing demands for water in the western U.S., and water demand by the poor in developing countries. History and analysis of U.S. water policies at local, state, and federal levels.

Treatment of legal and policy strategies for promoting environmental protection and deterring environmental degradation within the context of other societal objectives. Topical approach with a focus on problems of special interest to criminologists and to environmental policy specialists. Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Lecture, three hours. Natural disasters are natural processes that adversely affect humans. By examining these processes students develop a basic understanding of Earth’s physical environment. Topics include: tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, severe weather, flooding, climate change, mass extinctions and impacts with space objects.

Lecture, three hours. Overview of scientific underpinnings of global environmental change and human health consequences. Provides students with an understanding of the fundamental dependency of human health on global environmental integrity. Encourages disciplinary cross-fertilization through interaction of students in environmental, health, and policy sciences. Prerequisite: at least one upper-division course in environmental science, public health, environmental policy, and/or environmental management, or consent of instructor.

Lecture, three hours. Examines factors involved in shaping public health and environmental policy. Topics include the role of science in public health policy, the function of governmental regulatory agencies, citizen participation, and economic and sociopolitical aspects of controlling infectious diseases and regulating carcinogens.