Courses
Fall semester odd years the Looy lab is offering "The Living Planet - Impact of the biosphere on the Earth System"
Course IB 159; Instructors: Cindy Looy and Ivo Duijnstee.
Earth is a complex dynamic system. Interplay between its components (solid earth, oceans/ice and atmospehere) governs conditions on the planet’s outside that we inhabit. In turn, life asserts a vast influence on the abiotic components; in fact the biosphere itself is an important system component. We will explore the effect that 3.5 billion years of evolving biosphere had on System Earth and vice versa (e.g. in terms of climate), including the recent human impact on the system.
Fall semester even years the Looy Lab is offering: "Paleobotany - The 500-million year history of a greening planet".
Course IB 181L; Instructor: Cindy Looy
Course description: This course is an introduction to the evolution of plants and their ecosystems through time. We will start off with the earliest plant life, the transition to land, and the emergence of terrestrial ecosystems. We will follow the evolution of major plant groups during important moments in time through the Phanerozoic (last 650 million years). We will explore ancient fossilized plant communities, their ecological properties, and we will examine how major environmental upheavals affected their evolution. Throughout the course, we will see what profound impact plants have on the functioning of our planet’s surface and atmosphere.
IB 158LF/ESPM C107 Biology and geomorphology of tropical islands - every Fall semester
Instructors: Cindy Looy and Ivo Duijnstee
This course offers a field research experience that many former students consider the capstone to their years at Berkeley. The course begins with 3 weeks of intensive lectures and training on the UC Berkeley campus that provide the contextual framework for the remainder of the course. The students then depart for approximately 9 weeks at the Gump Research Station on Moorea in French Polynesia. While in Moorea, students design and execute their own independent research projects, starting with the initial preliminary studies and ending with statistical analyses and writing. The final weeks are spent back in the Berkeley campus where students write up their findings and prepare a professional seminar on their projects. The class size is limited to 22 students by the Gump dormitory facilities. Students learn about the biology, geology, evolution, and people of the South Pacific. They develop the fundamentals of field research and work with faculty members to develop an independent project on an island topic, such as marine or terrestrial ecology, volcanic geomorphology, biodiversity, invasion biology, animal behavior, or oceanography of reefs and islands.
Course IB 159; Instructors: Cindy Looy and Ivo Duijnstee.
Earth is a complex dynamic system. Interplay between its components (solid earth, oceans/ice and atmospehere) governs conditions on the planet’s outside that we inhabit. In turn, life asserts a vast influence on the abiotic components; in fact the biosphere itself is an important system component. We will explore the effect that 3.5 billion years of evolving biosphere had on System Earth and vice versa (e.g. in terms of climate), including the recent human impact on the system.
Fall semester even years the Looy Lab is offering: "Paleobotany - The 500-million year history of a greening planet".
Course IB 181L; Instructor: Cindy Looy
Course description: This course is an introduction to the evolution of plants and their ecosystems through time. We will start off with the earliest plant life, the transition to land, and the emergence of terrestrial ecosystems. We will follow the evolution of major plant groups during important moments in time through the Phanerozoic (last 650 million years). We will explore ancient fossilized plant communities, their ecological properties, and we will examine how major environmental upheavals affected their evolution. Throughout the course, we will see what profound impact plants have on the functioning of our planet’s surface and atmosphere.
IB 158LF/ESPM C107 Biology and geomorphology of tropical islands - every Fall semester
Instructors: Cindy Looy and Ivo Duijnstee
This course offers a field research experience that many former students consider the capstone to their years at Berkeley. The course begins with 3 weeks of intensive lectures and training on the UC Berkeley campus that provide the contextual framework for the remainder of the course. The students then depart for approximately 9 weeks at the Gump Research Station on Moorea in French Polynesia. While in Moorea, students design and execute their own independent research projects, starting with the initial preliminary studies and ending with statistical analyses and writing. The final weeks are spent back in the Berkeley campus where students write up their findings and prepare a professional seminar on their projects. The class size is limited to 22 students by the Gump dormitory facilities. Students learn about the biology, geology, evolution, and people of the South Pacific. They develop the fundamentals of field research and work with faculty members to develop an independent project on an island topic, such as marine or terrestrial ecology, volcanic geomorphology, biodiversity, invasion biology, animal behavior, or oceanography of reefs and islands.
