Courses

Recurring courses

Spring semester (usually in odd years):
The Living Planet - Impact of the biosphere on the Earth System
Course IB 159; instructor: 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.

Spring semester in even years:
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.

Offered every fall semester:
Biology and geomorphology of tropical islands
IB 158LF/ESPM C107; instructors always include 2 IB and 2 ESPM faculty members (in even years including Cindy Looy, and sometimes 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.

What's on in Spring 2021?

INTEGBI 181L (Cindy & Jaemin)
Paleobotany - The 500-million year history of a greening planet

INTEGBI 159 (Ivo)
The Living Planet - Impact of the biosphere on the Earth System

INTEGBI 286-SEM 003  Seminars in Paleontology (Cindy & Jack Tseng)
Fossil Coffee
This seminar series is both a course and our weekly get-together with the entire UCMP community. Every week we have a guest speaker: visiting scientists, invited speakers, paleoscientists and science outreachers and educators from the larger Bay Area, or one of our own.

INTEGBI 296 Special Study for Graduate Students (Cindy & Jack Tseng)
Paleontological Fieldwork Course
This hand-on lecture series plus field trips for UCMP graduate students is a theoretical and practical guide for doing fossil fieldwork in marine and terrestrial rock outcrops. It combines basic info on stratigraphic context, sedimentology and depositional environments with good fossil dig field practices and safety. Highlight is a 6-day expedition during spring break or at the end of the semester (depending on the weather conditions). Expeditions are on a rotating schedule that includes as main destinations: the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park area (SoCal), the Death Valley National Park area (CA, NV), the central Nevada Basin & Range (NV, UT), the Guadalupe Mts National Park area (TX, NM) and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (OR).

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