We all depend on the diversity of life for personal and societal survival. We need all forms of life for the beauty it holds, the food it gives, the life-saving drugs it provides, the clean water we use, or any number of other valid and important reasons. The services that healthy ecosystems perform, if only from our human perspective, are immense and irreplaceable. Conservation Biology deals with identification, protection, maintenance, development, and restoration of the earth’s biological diversity (biodiversity), including genetic diversity within species, species richness in different regions, and the diversity of ecological communities. This focus differs substantially from traditional wildlife management and forestry-range programs in two fundamental ways:
(2) it seeks to preserve biological processes (ecological and evolutionary interactions) that generate and maintain biodiversity over the long-term. Our program offers a large number of natural history courses (botany, mammalogy, entomology, etc.) and includes courses relevant to policy, management, ethical, and socioeconomic factors.
Students in this program conduct research projects with professors in many departments and with expertise at all scales of modern conservation biology. Projects range from those focusing on genetic variation within key species of concern to
inventorying species, communities, and ecosystems locally, regionally, and around the world. Others carefully examine interactions between species and their environments. Our students provide scientific information to aid government and private institutions in making decisions of how best to maintain, develop, and restore biodiversity resources at all these levels, while others work to improve biological science education curricula in local public schools. We have great museum and data-basing resources, and links with communities worldwide to gather, store, and use information on distribution of many kinds of living organisms. Many students choose to study conservation biology simply for the intrinsic joy and beauty it brings to their lives. Our students participate in all these efforts.
Professional training in Conservation Biology is presently offered at the S level. Common experiences for our students include participating in extended field trips with faculty, assisting with long-term research and museum curation or education projects, participating in international exchange programs, working as volunteer interns and performing community outreach education. Many of our students planning on medical and dental careers use these opportunities to enhance their knowledge of key conservation issues and involvement in programs combining the “natural” world with their interests in human health and wellbeing. As a result of participation in research projects, many students present papers or posters with faculty sponsors at scientific meetings, and co-author papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Chem 105* General College Chemistry
Chem 106 General College Chemistry
Chem 107 General College Chemistry Lab
Chem 105* General College Chemistry
Chem 106 General College Chemistry
Chem 107 General College Chemistry Lab
Geog 306 Public Land Conservation
PWS 419 Forest Management and Ecology