CLUSTER M1A
Food: Lens for Environment and Sustainability
Description: (Same as Environment M1A.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Course M1A is enforced requisite to M1B, which is enforced requisite to M1CW. Limited to first-year freshmen. Food as lens for local and global environmental and sustainability issues. Integration of environmental, social, economic, and technological solutions for fair, sustainable, and healthy food production, food security, and access. Focus on human impacts on Earth's biological and physical systems, including how food production and consumption contributes to, and is impacted by, global problems, including climate change, pollution, and overpopulation. Laboratory exercises included in discussions. Letter grading.
Units: 6.0
Units: 6.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - I did not know this going into the cluster class, but every 5 weeks we get a new professor. Out of all of the professors I’ve currently had for this cluster, I can easily say that Basset was the best one. Although all of the material was roughly the same throughout the year, Basset was the only professor who made the lectures engaging and interesting. He was passionate about what he would speak about, and engaged the class in multiple ways such as bringing in food that related to the lesson for the students to sample, or suggesting outside of class opportunities that pertained to the topics we were learning about. I also found his assigned reading “The Jungle Effect” to be really interesting and actually enjoyable to read. If you took AP Environmental Science in highschool, this class is basically extended APES. There is a lot of overlap in the topics. The workload changes slightly with each new professor, but overall the workload for this class is very light and manageable. The one main assignment for the quarter is an end of the quarter research paper, but you have all quarter to work on it which gives you a lot of time.
Fall 2023 - I did not know this going into the cluster class, but every 5 weeks we get a new professor. Out of all of the professors I’ve currently had for this cluster, I can easily say that Basset was the best one. Although all of the material was roughly the same throughout the year, Basset was the only professor who made the lectures engaging and interesting. He was passionate about what he would speak about, and engaged the class in multiple ways such as bringing in food that related to the lesson for the students to sample, or suggesting outside of class opportunities that pertained to the topics we were learning about. I also found his assigned reading “The Jungle Effect” to be really interesting and actually enjoyable to read. If you took AP Environmental Science in highschool, this class is basically extended APES. There is a lot of overlap in the topics. The workload changes slightly with each new professor, but overall the workload for this class is very light and manageable. The one main assignment for the quarter is an end of the quarter research paper, but you have all quarter to work on it which gives you a lot of time.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - Initially, this class was a lot of review from topics that were learned in high school. Carruth's section was the most unique, and was personally the most interesting as it looked at things with a more cultural context. Midterms and final are fairly easy, mostly multiple choice. Also, selling textbook for $85. text ********** if interested :)
Winter 2019 - Initially, this class was a lot of review from topics that were learned in high school. Carruth's section was the most unique, and was personally the most interesting as it looked at things with a more cultural context. Midterms and final are fairly easy, mostly multiple choice. Also, selling textbook for $85. text ********** if interested :)
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - The lecture presentations are basic and lack comprehensive detail. Additionally, the professors tend to be uncoordinated and sometimes lack energy to engage students and even get their attention. Granted, this is a 100+ lecture full of freshman. Their guest lecturers are amazing and add great substance to the material being taught in class. Guest lectures are often unannounced and a surprise for the students in an effort to get them to attend class (we are given handouts to be filled out and returned to our TAs after lecture). I took AP Environmental Science my senior year of high school, so I didn't learn any new material. It was all review, straight down to the labs we did in discussion, so the class seemed boring and repetitive to me. The workload is on the heavy side and the papers we are assigned to do are not worth enough points compared to the effort we put into it. Still, the (almost) weekly assignments are not difficult. The discussion sections are unnecessarily long (2 hrs) and pointless other than for being given assignments and turning them in. Attendance is part of your grade! The midterm and final were not super detail oriented as I feared they would be. They weren't difficult at all if you understood the main concepts that the lectures covered and had some specific examples to use. No multiple choice, all short answer and one long essay question. The review sessions that the TAs held before tests were lacking and also uncoordinated - mostly a waste of time. Overall, this cluster is amazing for getting rid of science GEs and a piece of cake for those who did well in AP ENVIRO. Boring and irritating, but manageable. I recommend making friends with your classmates to have study sessions together and ask each other assignment questions that are unclear.
Fall 2016 - The lecture presentations are basic and lack comprehensive detail. Additionally, the professors tend to be uncoordinated and sometimes lack energy to engage students and even get their attention. Granted, this is a 100+ lecture full of freshman. Their guest lecturers are amazing and add great substance to the material being taught in class. Guest lectures are often unannounced and a surprise for the students in an effort to get them to attend class (we are given handouts to be filled out and returned to our TAs after lecture). I took AP Environmental Science my senior year of high school, so I didn't learn any new material. It was all review, straight down to the labs we did in discussion, so the class seemed boring and repetitive to me. The workload is on the heavy side and the papers we are assigned to do are not worth enough points compared to the effort we put into it. Still, the (almost) weekly assignments are not difficult. The discussion sections are unnecessarily long (2 hrs) and pointless other than for being given assignments and turning them in. Attendance is part of your grade! The midterm and final were not super detail oriented as I feared they would be. They weren't difficult at all if you understood the main concepts that the lectures covered and had some specific examples to use. No multiple choice, all short answer and one long essay question. The review sessions that the TAs held before tests were lacking and also uncoordinated - mostly a waste of time. Overall, this cluster is amazing for getting rid of science GEs and a piece of cake for those who did well in AP ENVIRO. Boring and irritating, but manageable. I recommend making friends with your classmates to have study sessions together and ask each other assignment questions that are unclear.
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