Proposed Core Category

Application Documents

• Application
• Syllabus
• Supporting Documentation

Course Description

Extension of the study of geology, astronomy, meteorology and oceanography, focusing on natural resources, hazards and climate variability. Lab activities will focus on methods used to collect and analyze data related to natural resources, hazards and climate variability.

Prerequisites

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Identify the influence of geologic and hydrologic processes on Earth's surface.
2. Describe the causes and effects of tectonic, meteorological, oceanographic, and astronomical hazards.
3. Relate climate changes to changes in tectonic configurations, astronomical relationships and atmospheric composition.
4. Discuss potential effects of climate variability on Earth's systems, including biological systems.
5. Recognize how scientific models represent an abstraction of complex systems, such as ocean circulation and climate variability.
6. Describe natural resources used by  humans and their occurrence and extraction.
7. Discuss the effects of renewable and nonrenewable resource development and sustainability.
8. Locate on maps and/or photographs localities susceptible to tectonic, meteorological, and oceanographic hazards.
9. Discuss methods of hazard prevention and mitigation such as early warning techniques, construction methods, and civil planning.
10. Describe contributing factors to past and current climate change.
11. Analyze effects of climate variability on geological and biological systems.
12. Analyze diverse sources of data that document climate variability such as ice cores, dendrochronology, fossils and pollen.
13. Relate the distribution of fossil fuel, metal and nonmetal resources to geologic processes.
14. Describe the methods of extraction of natural resources and their effects on the environment.
15. Describe renewable resources and methods of sustainability.