Geography and ecology of desert southwest emphasizing Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California del Sur and Baja California. Traveling by van and lodging in tents, trip covers 3,500 miles, offers hands-on experience with principles and problems of physical geography and ecology in desert environments. Offered only during Interterm.
This course covers the physical, chemical, and biological aspects of water quality of Colorado rivers and streams. Impacts from human activities, including mining and agriculture are evaluated. Significant time is spent assessing the water quality of surface and ground waters by completing a course-long project that evaluates the water quality of three surface rivers/streams near the University of Denver: Sand Creek, Clear Creek, and the headwaters of the Arkansas River. The course is an integrate lab/lecture course with significant time spent in the field collecting data. Prerequisite: GEOG 1203 or CHEM 1010.
An in-depth coverage of a specific environmental issue, topic, or problem. Topics vary with instructor.
Purpose and applications of federal laws pertaining to environmental protection, including NEPA, RCRA, CERCLA, and Clean Water and Clean Air Acts; addresses role of states in implementation of federal environmental laws.
This course focuses on the identification, analysis and mitigation of landscape-scale environmental issues or concerns, using watersheds as units of study. Emphasis is on field data collection and analysis to answer specific questions or address particular problems.
Study of a topic not covered in existing course offerings. May be used for work completed in off-campus internships that focus primarily on the mastery of existing knowledge.
Original research in environmental science topic under sponsorship of a faculty member; applicable to studies that focus primarily on discovery of new knowledge through application of scientific method.
Supervised internship in a state, local, or federal office or in the private sector. Prerequisites: 15 quarter hours in the environmental science major and approval of supervising faculty. Maximum of 5 quarter hours total.