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	300 Steele Building CB# 3504 UNC-Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3504 email: fys@unc.edu phone: (919)843-7773

Geography

GEOG 050 [006D]: Mountain Environment
Physical and Life Science (PL) [GC Natural Science - no lab]
Stephen Walsh
The focus of this course is on understanding the physical geography of mountain environments and the processes that have created them, shaped them, and sustained them. There are several reasons for studying the environments of mountains: (a) they reveal integrative earth systems
processes that can be readily observed and understood; (b) the processes are not oversimplified, but have spatial complexity at scales that can be readily comprehended; and (c) they also reveal human interactions with and impacts on their environment. We will explore Mountain Environments by concentrating on processes that shape the landscape, patterns that are apparent because of those active processes, and how the concept of scale (both through space and time) define the patterns that we see that are shaped by sets of scale-dependent processes. While we will talk about Mountain Environments in general, we will also focus on the specific by emphasizing a single region - Glacier National Park, Montana - as a case study site. We will explore biophysical processes shaping the landscapes of Mt. Mitchell, Grandfather Mountain, and Linville Gorge and make note of the patterns seen on the landscape that have resulted over time and captured on maps and photographs also contained within computerized databases.

GEOG 053 [006D]: Battle Park: UNC's Urban Forest
Experiential Education - Field Work (EE); Physical and Life Sciences [GC Natural Science - no lab, life]
Aaron Moody
This course will involve students in the study of the ecology of urban forests landscapes. This will be accomplished through a series of structured field experiences in Battle Park, a forested watershed extending east and then north from UNC-Chapel Hill. These field activities will be integrated with directed readings, discussions, and guest presentations in order to achieve the goals of the course. Through this course, students will be introduced to urban ecosystem ecology and become engaged in the urban ecology of UNC and Chapel Hill. Through their field work, they will also contribute to a long term ecological study of Battle Park. The course requires full participation in field trips and in-class sessions. There are no exams, but a major component of the course is to contribute to the Battle Park Long Term Ecological Database (BP-LTED). This will require the design and approval of a field project, conducting field sampling in Battle Park (outside of class hours), integrating the collected data into the BP-LTED, and a final write-up of the project. Field work outside of designated class times will be required. Students are also expected to read the assigned material and be prepared to discuss/integrate it into the class discussions.

GEOG 054 [006D]: Global Change and the Carolinas
Physical and Life Science (PL) [GC Natural Science - no lab, physical]
David Greenland
How will sea level rise affect your future beach vacation? Does ozone in the urban air make it difficult for you to breathe? Does increased urbanization or the development of a hog farm mean that you had to sell the family farm? Where does your trash go? Will there be a greater frequency of hurricanes? Is the climate really getting warmer in the Carolinas? This seminar seeks to familiarize the participants with some of the major current biophysical issues of Global Change and how these issues relate to the Carolinas. The kind of problems we might explore include 1) sea level rise on Carolina coasts and 2) how carbon dioxide output from Carolina affects global greenhouse gas concentration and how this might lead to global climate warming that, in turn, may affect the Carolinas. Underlying themes of the seminar will be: 1) the importance of distinguishing between natural changes and human-influenced changes, and 2) the necessity of understanding the operation of biophysical systems in order to make sound management decisions. The seminar will seek to teach students how to become familiar with, and critically approach and use, the huge amount of literature and other information on the topic. Class participation will include searching, downloading, and analyzing data from the Global Change Master Data Directory, discussing relevant segments from videos, field trips, and a term paper on a Carolina topic.

GEOG 055 [006D]: Landscape in Science and Art
Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Natural Science - no lab, life]
Peter Robinson
Artists look at the land around them and paint what they see or how it makes them feel, sometimes with great attention to exact detail, sometimes altering the view to make it more interesting or dramatic, and sometimes to show a fleeting moment in time. Scientists tend to view a landscape as the result of a series of forces or processes acting to create that particular piece of scenery at that particular place. The views are of the same bit of land, but the results are very different. Or are they? This seminar explores these two ways of viewing landscape, and in class discussions we will seek ways in which using both approaches can enhance our understanding and appreciation of a landscape. Since there are a great variety of landscape types, mountains and plains, forests and deserts, calm or stormy, urban or rural, we shall choose a selection for special study in each class. Some of these we can examine in detail during field trips to selected art museums, when the journey will provide opportunities to see the land from a scientific viewpoint, while the museum will provide examples of its artistic representation. Other landscapes, selected to ensure we consider a range of environments around the globe, will be examined using photographs, diagrams and artistic representations. In addition, seminar participants will be required to choose particular landscape types and, through individual and team projects, explore and link the scientific and artistic aspects of their chosen examples.

GEOG 056 [006D]: Local Places in a Globalizing World
Global Issues (GL); Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Natural Science - no lab]
Altha Cravey
How do international and global processes affect local places? Is it possible for local people to affect global processes? In this seminar, we examine the relationship between globalization and localization in order to think about how we--as individuals and groups--make a difference in the world. Examining cultural, economic and political dynamics, we will consider how local North Carolina communities are linked to other places in the world. How were global connections established and maintained? What individuals and groups were involved and has this changed over time? What challenges and opportunities accompany these distant connections? Students in the class engage basic social theoretic concepts that have been used to understand globalization and transnationalism. We also examine Latina/o migration in North Carolina (and the US) and think about ways migration may challenge (or confirm) some of the concepts and theories.

GEOG 057 [006E]: Dogs and People: From Prehistory to the Urbanized Future
Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Social Science]
Melinda Meade
Developing DNA evidence suggests that the first thing people did was to domesticate dogs. We took them with us everywhere. We used them as living tools to occupy and modify the earth, from Arctic transport to sheep guarding and herding, from food supply to means of hunting, from weapon of war to beasts of burden. Soon the majority of humans will live in cities. This necessarily means the urbanization of dogs also. How are we adapting them to our urban needs for companionship, physical assistance, entertainment and social connection? How are we adapting our cities and ourselves to them?

GEOG 058 [006E]: Making Myth-leading Memories: Landscapes of Remembrance
Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Social Science]
Stephen Birdsall
Geography's primary interests include the study of the interactions between humans and the environments in which they live. For example, when a person or an event is thought by society to be especially significant and valued, ways are often sought to sustain what is valued by preserving in the landscape the memory of the person or event. This course will consider memorial landscapes that are created from the impulse to retain some value symbolized by the person or event memorialized. We know, however, that memories can be complex and change over time. How a memorial landscape is interpreted can also change in complex ways. We will ask: What is preserved in memorial landscapes? Are some memorials more successful than others? Can one evaluate this kind of success? What does a memorial tell us about the society that created it, and what does it tell us about ourselves if the memorial's meaning has changed? What can we learn by thinking about memorials that were never created?

GEOG 059 [006E]: Space, Identity and Power in the Middle East
Beyond the North Atlantic (BN) [GC Social Science]
Banu Gokariksel
There are many spaces, old and new, that are central to the formation of identity and power relations in the Middle East. Certain spaces, including the harem, hamam (public bath), mosques, street bazaars, coffeehouses and the desert figure prominently in the histories and imaginations of the region. Newer spaces such as shopping malls, gated communities and cafés have also become centers of social life, but are often overlooked in Western perspectives on this region. In this seminar, our aim is to examine (1) the role all of these spaces play in representations of the Middle East by insiders and outsiders and (2) how different Middle Easterners use these spaces to construct their identities.

GEOG 060 [006D]: What is Health Care?
Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Natural Science - no lab]
Wilbet Gesler
Health care is far more than doctors and hospitals. This course will examine a variety of aspects of health care, including the biomedical system, health care in non-Western countries, alternative practitioners, beliefs about health, health policies, the role of various media, and healthy places. The emphasis is on the social sciences (geography, anthropology, sociology, mainly) of health. Students will read and discuss book chapters, journal articles, novels, and film/videos. Grades will be based on group projects, examinations, and written work.

GEOG 061 [006D]: Climate Change in the American Southeast
Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Social Science]
Peter Robinson
Human actions are changing in the atmospheric composition and thus the climate. However, there is uncertainty on how fast, how much, when, where, chances will occur, and on how serous will be the impact on human activities. Seminar participants, working in small groups, will run climate models and investigate current climate trends, combining the results to create scenarios of future climate for the southeast United States. Small teams will then select an economic activity important to the southeast and investigate the potential impacts of the climate scenarios on these activities.

GEOG 062: The Culture of Technology
Philosophical and Moral Reasoning (PH); Communication Intensive (CI)
Scott Kirsch
Cell phones; global positioning systems; genetically-modified organisms; the internet; the microchip; the steam engine; railroad cars, automobiles, passenger jets; x-rays; nuclear bombs; satellites; magnetic resonance imaging. Technologies, as those listed here suggest, have shaped our world in critical ways, from our means of dealing with nature to our modes of dealing with each other, and from economic production to political debates to the very dimensions of space and time around which social life is organized. And yet, though technology is arguably among the most human of social processes, its profound effects on everyday life, social relations, and the human environment are too often left unexamined. This first-year seminar uses the lens of culture to explore systems of meaning and values, and relations of social power, that are invested in technologies. Focusing on representations of technology in film, literature, and new media, on one hand, and on the values that go into the making of actual technologies, on the other, the course encourages critical thinking and writing about our place in a technological world, and technology's place in ours.