Faculty

• Name:John Pickering (Pick or Dr. Pick)
• E-mail: pick@discoverlife.org
• Lab phone: 706-542-1115 (daytime; messages; Nancy or Becka)
• Cell phone: 706-254-7446 (other times)
• Home phone: 706-353-7076 (not after 9:00PM, unless emergency)
• Office/Lab location: 538 Biological Sciences Building (northeast corner of building)
• Office hours: 2:00-5:00PM, Tuesdays or by appointment.
• Technical support: Nancy Lowe, 538 Bio. Sci. Bld., 404-272-4526 (email: nancy@discoverlife.org )
  10:00-12:00PM, Monday or by appointment.

General course goals

1. Career development -- Curriculum vitae
2. Presentation skills -- Book report
3. Learning methods in large-scale ecology and quantitative analysis -- Assignments
4. Learning local natural history -- Survey of moths and wildflowers

Schedule
Time -- 3:45-4:25PM, Monday
Where

• Inside -- Glass Conference Rooms, Ecology Building
• Outside -- Field trips within Clarke County to be announced: State Botanical Garden, Southeast Clarke Park, Lake Herrick

• 15 Aug -- INTRODUCTION
  • Course structure
  • Student introductions
  • Assignment-1:
    Write at least a 2-page curriculum vitae. Due before class 12 September.
    Email it as a pdf, doc or html attachment to dl@discoverlife.org -- Subject: 'ECOL 4950 -- CV -- your name'
    For examples, click here.

     [Add: 15-19 Aug; Drop: 15-18 Aug]
  
• 22 Aug -- The Big Why -- What are the 10 most pressing ecological questions?
  
  • Class Questions
    Assignment-2:
    Please list the 1) author, 2) year, 3) title, 4) publisher, and 5) ISBN of a book NOT on the list at the bottom of this page that contains subject matter relevant to this class.
    Due before midnight Wednesday, 7 September.
    Email it to dl@discoverlife.org -- Subject: 'ECOL 4950 -- Book -- your name'

• 29 Aug -- Tragedy of the Commons
  Bring your brain to class.

     [5 Sep -- Labor Day Holiday]

• 12 Sep -- Large-scale natural history questions
  Bring a digital camera that passes the Dime Test.
  • Assignment-3:
    Detail your 3 most pressing ecological questions.
    Due before class 19 September.
    Email them to dl@discoverlife.org -- Subject: 'ECOL 4950 -- Ecological questions -- your name'
    Ecological Questions

• 19 Sep -- Inventory and monitoring techniques
  Bring a laptop to class.
  • Assignment-4:
    
    • Upload photographs of at least 5 moth species to your album, documenting where and when you took them.
      We will start identifying these in class on Monday.
      Due before 5:00PM, Sunday, 25 September.

    • Send an email to dl@discoverlife.org -- Subject: 'ECOL 4950 -- Book report -- partners' names'
      with partners names, book title, and date at which you will give your report. Due before 5:00PM, Wednesday, 21 September.

• 26 Sep -- Species identification; Quantitative methods
  
  • Assignment-5:
    Upload photographs of at least 10 wildflower species to your album, documenting where and when you took them.
    We will start identifying these in class on Monday.
    Due before 5:00PM, Sunday, 2 October.

• 3 Oct -- Biotic survey
  Bring a laptop to class.
  • Assignment-6:
    Read and evaluate the Ecological Questions
    Select the best three; identify the question by the name and number, restate it in your own words, and then critique it in a paragraph.
    Email your three paragrpahs to dl@discoverlife.org -- Subject: 'ECOL 4950 -- Best ecological questions -- your name'
    Due before 5:00PM, Sunday, 9 October.
    Best Questions

     [Midterm: 6 Oct]

• 8 Oct -- Optional Field Trip
  Bring camera
  3:30PM -- State Botanical Garden -- Goldenrod patch under power line by river. (Take first right; then first right.)

• 10 Oct -- Ecological Questions
  

• 17 Oct -- --NO CLASS; DOUBLE SESSION NEXT WEEK
  

     [Withdrawal Deadline: 20 Oct]

• 24 Oct -- --Double Session--Class Discussion
  
  • Assignment-7:
    Read Mothing, especially the Results and Analysis sections. What specific questions would you want to ask from these and similar moth datasets from other sites? Be prepared to discuss one of your questions in class. What is your hypothesis? How would you test it?

     [Fall Break: Friday, 28 Oct]

• 31 Oct -- NO CLASS; DOUBLE SESSION NEXT WEEK
  

• 7 Nov--Double Session--Book reports--The Diversity of Life and Last Child in the Woods and A Land of Ghosts and Walden
  

• 14 Nov -- NO CLASS; DOUBLE SESSION NEXT WEEK
  

     [21 Nov -- Thanksgiving Holiday]
  

• 28 Nov--Double Session--Book reports--Collapse and The Future of Life and Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and 1491
  

• 5 Dec -- Book reports--The Windward Road and The Forgotten Pollinators
  

     [Reading Day: 7 Dec]

• 14 Dec, Wednesday, 3:30-6:30 -- Final survey reports (no exam)
  

     [Grades due: 20 Dec, 5:00PM]

Grading

Grades

Academic honesty

All academic work must meet the standards contained in "A Culture of Honesty." Students are responsible for informing themselves about those standards before performing any academic work. The link to more detailed information about academic honesty can be found at: http://www.uga.edu/honesty.

Books

The course has no assigned text. You will be expected to present a book report to the class with a partner, starting on 17 October. Select from the following:

• Bartram, William. The Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist's Edition. Edited by Francis Harper. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958. Reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. ISBN 0820320277
• Buchmann, Stephen L., and Gary Paul Nabhan. The Forgotten Pollinators. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997. ISBN 1559633530 [Reviewers Amy W. + Taylor P., Dec 5]
• Campbell, David G. 2007. A Land of Ghosts: The Braided Lives of People and the Forest in Far Western Amazonia. Rutgers Universtiy Press. ISBN 978-0813540528. [Reviewers Olakekan Kamau-Nataki + Kate H.,Nov.7]
• Carr, Archie. The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1980. ISBN 978-0813006390 [Reviewers Matt Foretich + Alex Wright, Dec 5]
• Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Penguin (Non-Classics), 2011. ISBN 978-0143117001 [Reviewers William L. + Jack G., Nov.28]
• Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections). New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2001. ISBN 0195146174
• Louv, R. 2005. Last Child in the Woods. Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. ISBN 978156512391 [Reviewers: Caleb A. + Brendan M., Nov 7]
• Mann, Charles C. 2005. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Knopf. ISBN 978-1400040063. [Reviewers Todd P. + Malavika R., Nov 28]
• Mowat, Farley. Sea of Slaughter. Mariner Books, 1996. ISBN-10:1576300196/13:978-1576300190
• Quammen, David. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction. New York: Scribner, 1997. ISBN 0684827123
• Ray, Janisse. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (World As Home, The). Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2000. ISBN 1571312471 [Reviewers Amanda H. + Tierney O., Nov 28]
• Roberts, Callum. The Unnatural History of the Sea. Washington: Shearwater, 2009. ISBN 1597265772
• Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New York: Digireads.Com, 2005. ISBN 1420922610 [Reviewers Cody J. + Stephanie M., Nov 7]
• Wilson, Edward O. The Diversity of Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. ISBN: 978-0393319408 [Reviewers Stenka V. + Sergio M., Nov 7]
• Wilson, Edward O.. The Future of Life. New York: Vintage, 2003. ISBN 0679768114 [Reviewers Danielle A. + Brett B., Nov 28]
• Wilson, Edward O. The Naturalist. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1994. ISBN 1-55963-288-7

Videos

• 5 minutes university [on 15 August]
• The big why [on 22 August]
• Bjorn Lomborg: Our priorities for saving the world [on 3 October]
  and then read this
  and then this
  and the findings Muller from UC Berkeley in the Washington Post, 24 October, 2011:
  
  • some data -- 1.6 billion records assembled by Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature