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.
The 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, three research focuses have emerged to define geography at Berkeley:
Earth System Science (a.k.a. Physical Geography)
This branch of geography focuses on 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 research of our Earth Systems Science faculty epitomizes this interdisciplinary and global approach, and with expertise in biogeochemistry, biogeography, climate dynamics and climate change, geomorphology, glaciology, hydrology, and terrestrial ecology. Our research spans all corners of the world—from the swamps of the Everglades to the tundra of Alaska, from the ocean-atmosphere systems of the tropical Pacific to the vast ice sheets of Antarctica.
Economy, Culture and Society (a.k.a. Human Geography)
Human geography is a social science distinguished by its attention to the relation of humanity to the earth, in two regards. The first concerns the interaction of people with nature, including the extraction of natural resources, the environmental impact of people and their activities, and the effects of natural forces on society. The second concerns the spatial organization of societies at all scales from the local to the global (and from minutes to millennia) and the production of place, territory, and landscape by human imagination and activity.
Our Economy, Culture and Society faculty and graduate students work all around the world and explore an enormous range of topics: forest and range utilization in North America, urban development in China, agrarian change and resource extraction in Africa, conflict and human rights in Latin America, and much more. We examine borders and migration, conservation and development, globalization and governance while attending closely to the roles of race, gender, and class and of science, technology, and economy in shaping the world around us.
Geospatial Representation and Analysis
Advances in digital technologies have revolutionized how scholars, governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations collect, store, analyze and represent information about space, place, flows and locations. Even as the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become ubiquitous, it has been superseded for research purposes by advances in spatial analysis, simulation modeling, remote sensing, web-based mapping, and geo-visualization. These technologies apply to the study of biophysical and social systems alike, and they are beginning to show potential to erode the practical and pedagogical obstacles that have historically separated quantitative and qualitative methods, Human and Physical Geography. Our faculty use them to model global climate and coastal sediment dynamics, gentrification, segregation, transit and public health. We encourage students to use these tools critically and creatively to answer pressing questions about the contemporary world.
Bachelor of Arts in Geography
The undergraduate major in geography 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 advisers.
Students may declare the geography major after completing at least 30 units, with a 2.0 or better cumulative Berkeley GPA, and after completion of at least two of the three lower division requirements. Junior transfer students should declare their major during the beginning of their second semester at Berkeley.
To declare a major in geography, please schedule an appointment with the Undergraduate Major Advisor, Sarah Varner, here: https://calendly.com/svarner-geography.
The major requires a student to take three lower division courses, one in each of these areas:
Basic Physical Geography
World Geography
Regional Geography
In order to declare the major, a student must have taken and successfully passed at least TWO lower division courses, one from each area.
Upon declaring the major and completing the three lower division course requirements, students will need to complete eight upper division courses in order to satisfy the requirements of the major.
All newly declared geography majors will need to choose one of the two specialty groups: Earth System Science (physical geography) or Economy, Culture and Society (human geography). Please read more about the geography program for insight into the two specialty groups housed within the major.
The eight upper division courses span the two different specialty groups as well as a third section for methodology courses.
Both of the specialty groups have ONE required core course:
All students choosing the Earth System Science option must take Geography 140A.
All students choosing the Economy, Culture and Society option must take Geography 110 -OR- Geography 130.
Additionally, all students, regardless of their chosen specialty group, are required to take at least ONE methodology course as part of their upper division requirements.
Furthermore, the geography department utilizes two plans by which students can complete their eight upper division requirements: the 5-2-1 plan or the 4-2-2 plan.
In both plans, the first number represents the number of courses a student must take in their chosen specialty group, while the second number represents the number of courses they must take in the other specialty group. The third number refers to the number of methodology courses a student must take.
Here's the breakdown of each plan:
5-2-1 Plan
A total of 8 upper division courses, with:
5 courses from your chosen specialty group
2 courses from the other specialty group
1 methodology course
4-2-2 Plan
A total of 8 upper division courses, with:
4 courses from your chosen specialty group
2 courses from the other specialty group
2 methodology courses
The 5-2-1 and 4-2-2 plans are not set in stone and can be changed easily during the progression of the major. Please consult with the UMA if you have questions about changing your plan.
Academic Performance Requirements
All courses taken to fulfill the major requirements below must be taken for graded credit, other than courses listed which are offered on a Pass/No Pass basis only.
GEOG H195A/H195B, GEOG 197, GEOG 198, and GEOG 199 cannot be used to satisfy a major or minor program requirement.
All students must complete at least one semester of residence in the major before graduation.
Students are expected to enroll in at least 13 units per semester, with 15 units being considered a normal course load. The maximum number of units allowed per semester is 20.5; for unique situations, exceptions can be granted to exceed the maximum. Please meet with the UMA to discuss your request to exceed the semester unit cap.
A minimum grade point average of a 2.0 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
Students are welcome to declare a minor in geography to complement their academic study in another department. The minor will be noted officially on a student's transcript in the memoranda section, but will not be included on the official diploma.
All minors must be declared no later than one semester before a student's Expected Graduation Term (EGT). If the semester before EGT is fall or spring, the deadline is the last day of RRR week. If the semester before EGT is summer, the deadline is the final Friday of Summer Sessions. To declare a minor, contact the department advisor for information on requirements, and the declaration process.
The geography minor is comprised of any five upper division courses, as long as one course is selected from each specialty group (physical geography and human geography).
All five upper division courses counting toward the minor must be taken for a letter grade.
At least three of the five courses must be completed at UC Berkeley.
A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 is required for courses used to fulfill the minor requirements.
No more than one upper division course may be used to simultaneously fulfill requirements for a student's major and minor.
All minor requirements must be completed prior to the last day of finals during the semester in which you plan to graduate.
Students interested in the geography minor should schedule a meeting with the UMA in order to declare the minor.
All undergraduate minors must be declared no later than one semester prior to a student’s Expected Graduation Term (EGT). The deadline is the last day of RRR Week during that term.
College Requirements
Undergraduate students must fulfill the following requirements in addition to those required by their major program.
For detailed lists of courses that fulfill college requirements, please review the College of Letters & Sciences page in this Guide. 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.
The American History and Institutions requirements are based on the principle that a US resident 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 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 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 science. The requirement may be satisfied by exam or by taking an approved course.
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.
In order to provide a solid foundation in reading, writing, and critical thinking the College requires two semesters of lower division work in composition in sequence. Students must complete parts A & B reading and composition courses by the end of their second semester and a second-level course by the end of their fourth semester.
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 here for four years. In general, there is no need to be concerned about this requirement, unless you 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 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 BA 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 who choose the Economy, Culture, and Society track
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 who choose the Earth Systems Science track
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.
Advising
Major Advising
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 and understanding the major requirements
Advice about schedule planning, including planning for study abroad
Information about research opportunities, scholarships, graduate or professional schools, 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
Students are encouraged to utilize the UMA as a resource in whatever ways they need support and assistance within the department.
In addition to the UMA, the department has two designated undergraduate faculty advisors who can also serve as a valuable resource to students pursuing the geography major. Students are welcome to ask the faculty advisors questions about the content of geography courses, research opportunities, graduate school and career options in the field of geography.
The faculty advisors welcome students to meet with them during their office hours or by special appointment.
Professor Jovan Lewis Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Faculty Advisor for Economy, Culture and Society 597 McCone Hall Email for an appointment: jovan@berkeley.edu
Professor Jeffrey Q. Chambers
Professor and Undergraduate Faculty Advisor for Earth Systems Science 519 McCone Hall Email for an appointment: jqchambers@berkeley.edu
The geography department is committed to providing a safe, inclusive environment for all students.
L&S Advising
Information on general College of Letters & Science requirements should be obtained from a college adviser in the L&S office in 206 Evans Hall.
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 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 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.
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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.
●
Apply a solid working knowledge of how to approach politics with a geographic mindset.
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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 2020, Fall 2019
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. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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 2019 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2017 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: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
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: Not yet offered
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: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
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: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
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: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
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 2020 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 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 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
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 [+]
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: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session
We will track the historical evolution of the American city. We'll look at the economics of city life, at the organization of metropolitan political power, and at the aesthetics of the urban scene--to see how the core cultural themes of American urban life have endured over time while continuously adjusting to new circumstances. Our approach is to focus on major themes in urban life and to show how various groups have had different kinds of experiences in these urban realms. The Urban Experience: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
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 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Basic computer literacy (e.g., Excel or similar)
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Geography/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
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: 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 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: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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 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: 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.
Terms offered: Not yet offered
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 [+]
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 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 1999 10 Week Session, Spring 1994
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: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
Industrialization, urbanization, and economic growth in the global North. Locational patterns in manufacturing, retailing, trade, and finance. Geographic dynamics of technical change, employment, business organization, resource use, and divisions of labor. Property, labor, and social conflict as geographic forces. Local, national, and continental rivalries in a global economy, and challenges to U.S. dominance. Economic Geography of the Industrial World: Read More [+]
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. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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: Not yet offered
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 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2012
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 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: 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 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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 2019 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2017 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: 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: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2017, Spring 2014
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 [+]
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 2020, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020
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. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
This course examines the processes that determine the structure and circulation of the Earth's atmosphere. The approach is deductive rather than descriptive: to figure out the properties and behavior of the Earth's atmosphere 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 motion, mass conservation, and thermodynamic energy balance; geostrophic flow, quasigeostrophic motion, baroclinic instability and dynamics of extratropical cyclones. Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics: Read More [+]
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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: Fall 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
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: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
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. Climate Dynamics: 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: Fall 2019, Fall 2014, Spring 2013
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 2011, Spring 2010, Spring 2008
The tectonics and morphology of the sea floor, the geologic processes in the deep and shelf seas, and the climatic record contained in deep-sea sediments. The course will cover sources and composition of marine sediments, sea-level change, ocean circulation, paleoenvironmental reconstruction using fossils, imprint of climatic zonation on marine sediments, marine stratigraphy, and ocean floor resources. Geological Oceanography: Read More [+]
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: 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 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
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 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
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 2020, Fall 2019
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 2020
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 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: Not yet offered
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 2020, Spring 2019
This course introduces ways of seeing, describing, interpreting, and speculating on how everyday American built environments have given shape and meaning to social life. To that end, it surveys transformations in the country’s vernacular urban, suburban, and (to some extent) rural landscapes, at several scales: houses, yards, storefronts, parks, street patterns, workplaces, transit infrastructures, billboards, gas stations, and more. Addressed at one level to landscape as material culture, the course also assembles an eclectic intellectual history of lay and official attempts to study, define, critique, make sense of, represent, and intervene on ordinary Americans and their space. Readings include primary as well as secondary sources. American Landscapes: History, Culture, and the Built Environment: 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 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 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 2020, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2019
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 2020
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: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020
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 2012, Fall 2011, Fall 2009
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 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 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2016
Introduction to the metropolitan Bay Area: its history, economy, social makeup. Evolution of urban landscapes and spatial patterns. Social justice and conflict in the city. Business and industry location, real estate and housing, producing and consuming in the city. Regional characteristics of class, race, gender and politics. Urban Field Study: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 9 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 2019 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2018 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2017 First 6 Week Session
Traveling on foot and by BART—and with on-site lectures and discussions about architecture, urban design, cultural landscapes, and spatial patterns in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and Pleasanton—students in this course will explore the historical geography of the American city since 1850. Enrollment limited to 25 students. No pre-requisites. Both undergraduate and graduate students 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: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
Problems in the representation of quantitative and qualitative data on thematic maps. Cartographic Representation: 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. Final exam not required.
Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
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 Systems: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Some computer experience
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. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
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 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
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 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
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.
+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.
Faculty
Jeffrey Q. Chambers, Associate Professor. Forests, climate change, trees, tropical forests, remote sensing, Drought. Research Profile
Sharad Chari, Associate Professor. Geography as history of the present and as Earth/world-writing, social theory, political economy, development, agrarian studies, labor and work, racial/sexual capitalism, Black radical tradition, biopolitical struggle, oceanic humanities, photography, South Asia, South Africa, Indian Ocean . Research Profile
John Chiang, Professor. Climate change, climate dynamics, ocean-atmosphere interactions, paleoclimate. Research Profile
Kurt Cuffey, Professor. Continuum mechanics, climate, geomorphology, glaciers, glaciology, climate history, stable isotopes, geographical thought. Research Profile
William E. Dietrich, Professor. Morphology, earth and planetary sciences, geomorphology, evolution of landscapes, geomorphic transport laws, landscape evolution modeling, high resolution laser altimetry, cosmogenic nuclide analysis. Research Profile
Brandi Summers, Assistant Professor. Black geographies; urban geography; race and urban aesthetics; design, planning, and architecture; cultural politics of difference. Research Profile
Clancy Wilmott, Assistant Professor. Critical cartography; media geographies; critical GIS and data studies; cultural memory and landscape; politics of representation, textuality and visuality; digitalities, lived, made and inherited. Research Profile
Desiree Fields, Assistant Professor. Economic geography; urban theory; financialization; digital platforms and real estate; urban social movements; constructions of markets; geographical political economy; housing justice. Research Profile
You-Tien Hsing, Professor. China, geography, political economy of development in East Asia, the process of international economic restructuring, cultural and institutional configuration in the processes of Taiwanese direct investment, growth in Chinese cities, business networks. Research Profile
G. Mathias Kondolf, Professor. Ecological restoration, landscape architecture, environmental planning, fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, environmental geology, environmental impact assessment, riparian zone management. Research Profile
Jake Kosek, Associate Professor. Cultural politics of nature and difference, cultural geography, science and technology studies, critical race theory, critical cartography, biopolitics, human and the non-human, and environmental politics.
Laurel G. Larsen, Associate Professor. Hydroecology, geomorphology, complex systems, restoration ecology, environmental modeling, wetlands, sediment transport, environmental fluid mechanics. Research Profile
Jovan Scott Lewis, Assistant Professor. Jamaica and the USA, constructions and infrastructures of poverty, inequality, race (blackness), economy, and the market. Research Profile
Robert Rhew, Associate Professor. Geography, terrestrial-atmosphere exchange of trace gases, atmospheric chemistry and composition, halogen biogeochemistry, stratospheric ozone depletion issues, coastal salt marsh, chaparral, desert, tundra, boreal forest, grassland. Research Profile
Nathan F. Sayre, Associate Professor. Climate change, endangered species, rangelands, political ecology, pastoralism, ranching, environmental history, suburbanization, human-environment interactions, environmental geography, range science and management, Southwestern US, scale, community-based conservation. Research Profile
Harley Shaiken, Professor. Mexico, labor, globalization, education, United States, geography, work organization, issues of economic and political integration in the Americas, information technology, skill. Research Profile
David B. Wahl, Associate Adjunct Professor.
Affiliated Faculty
Teresa Caldeira, Professor. Comparative urban studies, urbanization in the global south, social theory, ethnography, qualitative methodology. Research Profile
Pheng Cheah, Professor. Nationalism, rhetoric, legal philosophy, feminism, 18th-20th century continental philosophy and contemporary critical theory, postcolonial theory and anglophone postcolonial literatures, cosmopolitanism and globalization, social and political thought. Research Profile
Nancy L. Peluso, Professor. Political ecology/resource policy and politics/forests/agrarian change/property and access. Research Profile
John Radke, Associate Professor. City and regional planning, landscape architecture and environmental planning, geographic information systems, database design and construction, spatial analysis, pattern recognition computational morphology. Research Profile
Isha Ray, Associate Professor. Water and development, Gender, water and sanitation, technology and development, social science research methods . Research Profile
Raka Ray, Professor. Feminist theory, gender, social movements, South and Southeast Asian studies, relations between dominant subaltern groups in India, women´_s movements in India. Research Profile
Lecturers
Diana Negrin da Silva, Lecturer.
Peter Ekman, Lecturer.
Melanie Feakins, Lecturer.
John Isom, Lecturer.
Ann Laudati, Lecturer.
Seth R. Lunine, Lecturer.
Emeritus Faculty
Paul Groth, Professor Emeritus. Architecture, vernacular architecture, urban geography, suburban America, cultural landscape studies, housing (US) . Research Profile
Gillian P. Hart, Professor Emeritus.
Michael Johns, Professor Emeritus. Latin America, development, geography, culture of cities. Research Profile
Beatriz Manz, Professor Emeritus. Latin America, human rights, peasantry, migrations, social movements, political conflict, Mayan communities in Guatemala, issues of memory, grief. Research Profile
Norman Miller, Professor Emeritus. Hydroclimate modeling and assimilation and analysis, climate change impacts to sociology-economic and ecological sectors. Research Profile
Richard Walker, Professor Emeritus. Race, environment, urbanism, politics, geography, resources, economic geography, regional development, capitalism, cities, California, class. Research Profile
+ Michael J. Watts, Professor Emeritus. Islam, development, Africa, social movements, political economy, political ecology, geography, South Asia, peasant societies, social and and cultural theory, US agriculture, Marxian political economy. Research Profile
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