Humans and their environments
Professor Daniel H. Janzen, djanzen@sas.upenn.edu

 

http://fusion.sas.upenn.edu/caterpillar/files/lecture.html

Department of Biology BIO 140/440

6 September 2007

This lecture course explores the interface of humans with their environments the world over. The emphasis is on ways that they interface, though given that this is a biology course, there is a strong biology bias. The topic is enormous and examples are presented through 140-minute photographic essays that are also on the course web site. The images are presented here for use as course material and for extra-course learning by anyone with access to the internet. The course is meant to stimulate examination of your environment and your connections with it. 

 

See also http://media.sas.upenn.edu/user/view.php?id=9285 for recordings of lectures.

course requirements
website administration

 

Lectures, Fall Semester, 2007:

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  (1) Ants and Acacias: ecology and evolutionary biology of a mutualism - two stories: your professor - an information entrepreneur - and biology.

6 Sep

  (2) Mimicry: population ecology, evolution, selection, phylogeny, taxonomy, perception and inference.

11 Sep

  (3) Lyme disease and the predominant suburban animal, you (Dr. Dustin Brisson, Department of Biology, UPenn, guest lecture)

13 Sep

  (4) Human and Environmental linkages revealed through stable isotope analysis (Dr. Brent Helliker, Department of Biology, UPenn, guest lecture)

18 Sep

  (5) How Emma Aronson became your TA, biologist and larval professor (Ms. Emma Aronson, Department of Biology, UPenn, guest lecture)

20 Sep

  (6) Why do bamboos wait so long to flower?

25 Sep

  (7) The world is not colored green, but L-dopa, cocaine and cafeine.  AND, biodiversity prospecting.

27 Sep

  (8) A day in the life of an African hunter

2 Oct

  (9) Socio-economics of tropical timber harvest

4 Oct

(10) Animals and their biotic environment: Liomys mice.

9 Oct

(11) First mid-semester examination, 1.5 hours (covering through 9 Oct and readings).

11 Oct

(12) Fall Break: no classes

16 Oct

(13) MOVIE: Paradise Reclaimed - History Revisited

18 Oct

(14) Biodiversity development: conservation through non-damaging use, a Costa Rican example.

23 Oct

(15) Animals and their biotic environment: Rothschildia moths.

25 Oct

(16) The great green solar panel: USE COURSE WEB SITE, NO LECTURE

30 Oct

(17) Cognition in wild animals and humans (Dr. Karen Overall, UPenn, Guest Lecturer).

1 Nov

(18) Animals and their physical environment: beaver

6 Nov

(19) Pleistocene anachronisms: the plants the megafauna left behind

8 Nov

(20) Second Mid-Semester Exam: 16 Oct through 8 Nov and readings.

13 Nov

(21) View from the inside: the black bear and other assorted guts.

15 Nov

(22) What is a flower? 

20 Nov

(23) What is a fruit and why does it rot?

27 Nov

(24) Life on a small Caribbean island

29 Nov

(25) Short summers: the arctic

4 Dec

(26) Conservation Analysis of an entire country: Costa Rica

        6 Dec