Course Description
Students will survey the foundations of natural resources management, including theories and tenets on human dimensions of natural resources management; adaptive management and decision-making; and population, behavioral, and evolutionary ecology. Students will critically evaluate primary literature and case studies in natural resources management.
Athena Title
Natural Resources Management
Non-Traditional Format
This course will be taught 95% or more online.
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will access and curate primary literature and other materials as a basis for managing information in this course and throughout their professional career.
- Students will develop, articulate, and defend in writing (with feedback and frequent opportunities for reflection and revision) their own working knowledge and ideas related to topics in natural resources management.
- Students will critically consider and explain key perspectives on human dimensions of natural resources management.
- Students will critically consider and explain principles of decision making, adaptive management, and research design to reduce uncertainty.
- Students will critically consider and explain core theories and principles in animal or plant population, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology as it applies to research and management.
- Students will critically consider core and explain and emerging issues in natural resources conservation and management including key and emerging approaches to the relevant scientific disciplines.
Topical Outline
- •Human Dimensions of Natural Resources
-Attitudes, Beliefs, Norms, Values, and Emotion: The Social Psychology of Conservation
-Science, Democracy, and Power: Ethics in Conservation
- •Uncertainty, Decision-Making, Adaptive Management, and Scientific Research
-Multi-criteria decision analysis
-Reducing uncertainty through management and experimentation
-Research hypotheses and the hypo-deductive method
- •Population Ecology
-Life history theory and life tables
-Population Viability Analyses
-Spatially structured populations
-Management of exploited populations
-Conservation in Managed Ecosystem
-Direct Measures to Sustain, Restore, and Proliferate Species
- •Evolutionary Ecology
-What is evolution and why does it matter in plant and wildlife research and management?
-The importance of adaptation and the perils of hyperadaptationism
-Human-driven evolution in managed and unmanaged populations
-Conservation and management of evolutionary processes in natural systems
- •Behavioral Ecology
-Behaviors at traits
-Comparative, manipulative, and optimization approaches to measure and study animal behavior
-Cognitive ethology and animal use of space and resources
-How human actions affect animal behaviors
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, interpersonal, or visual form.
