ENVIRON 166
Leadership in Water Management
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Limited to juniors/seniors. Examination of water quality and water supply issues, including interactions between scientific, technological, management, and policy issues. Invited experts, scholars, and practitioners discuss relevant issues such as pollution, climate change, and water infrastructure. Emphasis on solutions involving integrated water supply and wastewater systems. Leadership development through writing instruction and negotiations and media training. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
This class is one of my favorite at UCLA. Every week we had amazing guest lecturers who shared with us their recent projects and their views of leadership. After the guest lectures the professors gave thier lectures and the class was dismissed. Throughout the quarter, we worked in groups on a research project to be presented at the end. While it was challenging to compromise about ideas during the research project, it allowed me to test out the leadership ideals we talked about in class. As a result of the group work, I better understand both my strengths and weaknesses in being a leader. I recommend this class to those who think they are incapable of public speaking or leading a group. This class is an excellent opportunity to challenge yourself a bit and see if you really can lead a group or give a presentation to be proud of. In such a supportive environment, you may find that you have some of those seemingly unattainable leadership qualities. Remember: there are many different types of leaders with diverse qualities that make them effective. Paula Daniels is the Senior Policy Advisor at the office of Mayor Villaraigosa and a past Public Works Commissioner for LA so she is very passionate and knowledgeable about policy issues. I didn't feel as if I was being forced to memorize information, but rather taught about relevant water issues that I may work on in the future. Whenever she gave a lecture, she was very organized and lots of fun to watch because she really enjoys teaching. She is not a permanent professor here at UCLA but she still made time to talk with us. She is very personable and will know you by name even if you only spoke to her once! I really enjoyed the privelege of having her as a professor and I advise anyone to take her if they have the chance. In this course, I learned quite alot about where California water comes from, the current drought and water shortage issues, new sources of water, water policy, water rights, water commissions and agencies...This class was a great introduction into the world of water; something I knew very little about before hand. It is increasingly obvious that without policy decisions to implement environmental protection, all scientific facts and research would be useless. For this reason, I highly recommend Env 166, especially to environmental science students like myself, who need much more knowledge about policy and government.
This class is one of my favorite at UCLA. Every week we had amazing guest lecturers who shared with us their recent projects and their views of leadership. After the guest lectures the professors gave thier lectures and the class was dismissed. Throughout the quarter, we worked in groups on a research project to be presented at the end. While it was challenging to compromise about ideas during the research project, it allowed me to test out the leadership ideals we talked about in class. As a result of the group work, I better understand both my strengths and weaknesses in being a leader. I recommend this class to those who think they are incapable of public speaking or leading a group. This class is an excellent opportunity to challenge yourself a bit and see if you really can lead a group or give a presentation to be proud of. In such a supportive environment, you may find that you have some of those seemingly unattainable leadership qualities. Remember: there are many different types of leaders with diverse qualities that make them effective. Paula Daniels is the Senior Policy Advisor at the office of Mayor Villaraigosa and a past Public Works Commissioner for LA so she is very passionate and knowledgeable about policy issues. I didn't feel as if I was being forced to memorize information, but rather taught about relevant water issues that I may work on in the future. Whenever she gave a lecture, she was very organized and lots of fun to watch because she really enjoys teaching. She is not a permanent professor here at UCLA but she still made time to talk with us. She is very personable and will know you by name even if you only spoke to her once! I really enjoyed the privelege of having her as a professor and I advise anyone to take her if they have the chance. In this course, I learned quite alot about where California water comes from, the current drought and water shortage issues, new sources of water, water policy, water rights, water commissions and agencies...This class was a great introduction into the world of water; something I knew very little about before hand. It is increasingly obvious that without policy decisions to implement environmental protection, all scientific facts and research would be useless. For this reason, I highly recommend Env 166, especially to environmental science students like myself, who need much more knowledge about policy and government.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - I would not recommend this class. To preface, he is such a sweet, respectful and kind guy. A really great person, but I just really hated the class. This class is challenging. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. 90% of us who enrolled in this class have a background in Environmental Science or some form of political humanities (i.e. Labor Studies, Political Science, Public Affairs, etc…) and I am assuming you are trying to take this class to fulfill your Environmental major/minor requirement. So, when he hit us with the CIVIL ENGINEERING math equations we were stunned. And let me tell you about the homeworks: The homeworks are HARD. The homeworks are very hard. The homeworks have collectively robbed me of my soul. I lie at night every night wondering where it all went wrong. Each homework assignment took me 10-15+ hours to complete and I worked on it everyday for a week and I barely got a 70% on any one of them. To put it into perspective, our first homework assignment had a class average of 63%. He also cannot teach. It hurts me to say this because he is such a nice guy, and he is genuinely so sweet and kind, but he cannot teach. Sometimes he will say something and then never finish his sentence. I guess he wants you to use your imagination to fill the rest in, I don’t know. Or, he will just repeat the same sentence over and over again. One time he sent us a video explanation on how to do a homework problem and towards the end went “oops, no this is wrong, I made a mistake.” You’re telling me I just sat through 20 min of wrong explanation? Why send the video then? He also explains concepts so briefly then expects us to understand it somehow. I thought we were learning about water management, aquifers, canals, and dams (and we do!) but we also have an insane workload. The workload for this class is a bone to pick with. Assigned readings twice a week and 1-2 discussion posts per week, an individual presentation that robbed me an entire weekend, a final group project, quizzes, homeworks, surveys… The only reason I ended with an A+ is because I think enough students complained that he curved homework and gave us two EC opportunities. So, hopefully he does the same for you. We don't have any exams. Just a final group project which he grades fairly. Overall a really nice guy, but a really not nice class.
Fall 2023 - I would not recommend this class. To preface, he is such a sweet, respectful and kind guy. A really great person, but I just really hated the class. This class is challenging. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. 90% of us who enrolled in this class have a background in Environmental Science or some form of political humanities (i.e. Labor Studies, Political Science, Public Affairs, etc…) and I am assuming you are trying to take this class to fulfill your Environmental major/minor requirement. So, when he hit us with the CIVIL ENGINEERING math equations we were stunned. And let me tell you about the homeworks: The homeworks are HARD. The homeworks are very hard. The homeworks have collectively robbed me of my soul. I lie at night every night wondering where it all went wrong. Each homework assignment took me 10-15+ hours to complete and I worked on it everyday for a week and I barely got a 70% on any one of them. To put it into perspective, our first homework assignment had a class average of 63%. He also cannot teach. It hurts me to say this because he is such a nice guy, and he is genuinely so sweet and kind, but he cannot teach. Sometimes he will say something and then never finish his sentence. I guess he wants you to use your imagination to fill the rest in, I don’t know. Or, he will just repeat the same sentence over and over again. One time he sent us a video explanation on how to do a homework problem and towards the end went “oops, no this is wrong, I made a mistake.” You’re telling me I just sat through 20 min of wrong explanation? Why send the video then? He also explains concepts so briefly then expects us to understand it somehow. I thought we were learning about water management, aquifers, canals, and dams (and we do!) but we also have an insane workload. The workload for this class is a bone to pick with. Assigned readings twice a week and 1-2 discussion posts per week, an individual presentation that robbed me an entire weekend, a final group project, quizzes, homeworks, surveys… The only reason I ended with an A+ is because I think enough students complained that he curved homework and gave us two EC opportunities. So, hopefully he does the same for you. We don't have any exams. Just a final group project which he grades fairly. Overall a really nice guy, but a really not nice class.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - I generally felt like this class was decent, but I wasn't a big fan of the grading distribution and structure of the class. 25% of your grade is participation, which involved attendance, a discussion section presentation, and answering questions in lecture. No attendance was taken after I think week 2, so basically everyone got all the points here if they did the presentation (which was easy, and while we never got grades for it, I'm pretty sure it was graded very easily). 20% of your grade is from two quizzes, which were of middling difficulty. These were on week 3 and week 5. Most people I talked to got decent grades on them, but not good ones. They are timed, multiple choice and short answer quizzes based off of lecture. Because the lectures cover so much information, the quizzes can be a little difficult. It is open note, but again you have a time limit that really prevents you from fully looking up questions. After week 5, there are no more exams, so you can basically check out and not pay attention to lectures anymore. The rest of the grading is on projects where you do your own research, so while lectures can help, they aren't particularly important going forwards. 20% of your grade is from two short assignments, which was a memo (3 page short essay) and a 2 minute speech/testimony. You worked with a partner. Both assignments were on the same topic. I thought the grading was mostly fair, but you had to work for an A on these assignments. 35% of your grade was the final project, where you worked with a group of 5-7 people. 25% was for the final paper and 10% was for the final presentation. The final paper was 20 pages max and was a super detailed research paper about a given topic. You have a good amount of time to work on it, and the large group made it manageable. He gave you feedback on your outline and then your draft. He really wants citations and numbers, so you have to do a large amount of research. I think our paper had almost 10 pages of double spaced citations by the time we finished. The final presentation was 10 min long, and it was difficult to condense all of the info in the 20 page paper into a 10 min presentation. Time limits were strictly enforced. I never got my grade back for the paper and the presentation, but given my final grade and my grades on the other assignments, I think I did decently well. I think that the grading is probably strict but generally fair given how much time and feedback you receive before the final draft is due. I found lectures to be somewhat dense and not helpful at all after week 5, and discussion sections didn't even meet half of the time. There were also a lot of weekly readings, but I didn't think they were important and didn't do them. I thought the class was interesting enough, but the second part of the class was stressful due to all of the projects. I think it's a decent class to take if it fills a requirement for your major/minor.
Fall 2021 - I generally felt like this class was decent, but I wasn't a big fan of the grading distribution and structure of the class. 25% of your grade is participation, which involved attendance, a discussion section presentation, and answering questions in lecture. No attendance was taken after I think week 2, so basically everyone got all the points here if they did the presentation (which was easy, and while we never got grades for it, I'm pretty sure it was graded very easily). 20% of your grade is from two quizzes, which were of middling difficulty. These were on week 3 and week 5. Most people I talked to got decent grades on them, but not good ones. They are timed, multiple choice and short answer quizzes based off of lecture. Because the lectures cover so much information, the quizzes can be a little difficult. It is open note, but again you have a time limit that really prevents you from fully looking up questions. After week 5, there are no more exams, so you can basically check out and not pay attention to lectures anymore. The rest of the grading is on projects where you do your own research, so while lectures can help, they aren't particularly important going forwards. 20% of your grade is from two short assignments, which was a memo (3 page short essay) and a 2 minute speech/testimony. You worked with a partner. Both assignments were on the same topic. I thought the grading was mostly fair, but you had to work for an A on these assignments. 35% of your grade was the final project, where you worked with a group of 5-7 people. 25% was for the final paper and 10% was for the final presentation. The final paper was 20 pages max and was a super detailed research paper about a given topic. You have a good amount of time to work on it, and the large group made it manageable. He gave you feedback on your outline and then your draft. He really wants citations and numbers, so you have to do a large amount of research. I think our paper had almost 10 pages of double spaced citations by the time we finished. The final presentation was 10 min long, and it was difficult to condense all of the info in the 20 page paper into a 10 min presentation. Time limits were strictly enforced. I never got my grade back for the paper and the presentation, but given my final grade and my grades on the other assignments, I think I did decently well. I think that the grading is probably strict but generally fair given how much time and feedback you receive before the final draft is due. I found lectures to be somewhat dense and not helpful at all after week 5, and discussion sections didn't even meet half of the time. There were also a lot of weekly readings, but I didn't think they were important and didn't do them. I thought the class was interesting enough, but the second part of the class was stressful due to all of the projects. I think it's a decent class to take if it fills a requirement for your major/minor.
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Most Helpful Review
This class is one of my favorite at UCLA. Every week we had amazing guest lecturers who shared with us their recent projects and their views of leadership. After the guest lectures the professors gave thier lectures and the class was dismissed. Throughout the quarter, we worked in groups on a research project to be presented at the end. While it was challenging to compromise about ideas during the research project, it allowed me to test out the leadership ideals we talked about in class. As a result of the group work, I better understand both my strengths and weaknesses in being a leader. I recommend this class to those who think they are incapable of public speaking or leading a group. This class is an excellent opportunity to challenge yourself a bit and see if you really can lead a group or give a presentation to be proud of. In such a supportive environment, you may find that you have some of those seemingly unattainable leadership qualities. Remember: there are many different types of leaders with diverse qualities that make them effective. Mark Gold was the president of Heal the Bay so he is very passionate and knowledgeable about water policy issues. I didn't feel as if I was being forced to memorize information, but rather taught about relevant water issues that I may work on in the future. At times, his slides did not contain enough information, prompting me to look some facts up on my own. A few more quizzes may have been helpful to cement some of the information. Overall, I learned quite alot about where California water comes from, the current drought and water shortage issues, new sources of water, water policy, water rights, water commissions and agencies...This class was a great introduction into the world of water; something I knew very little about before hand. Without policy decisions to implement environmental protection, all of the scientific facts and research in the world would be useless. For this reason, I highly recommend Env 166, especially to environmental science students like myself, who need much more knowledge about policy and government.
This class is one of my favorite at UCLA. Every week we had amazing guest lecturers who shared with us their recent projects and their views of leadership. After the guest lectures the professors gave thier lectures and the class was dismissed. Throughout the quarter, we worked in groups on a research project to be presented at the end. While it was challenging to compromise about ideas during the research project, it allowed me to test out the leadership ideals we talked about in class. As a result of the group work, I better understand both my strengths and weaknesses in being a leader. I recommend this class to those who think they are incapable of public speaking or leading a group. This class is an excellent opportunity to challenge yourself a bit and see if you really can lead a group or give a presentation to be proud of. In such a supportive environment, you may find that you have some of those seemingly unattainable leadership qualities. Remember: there are many different types of leaders with diverse qualities that make them effective. Mark Gold was the president of Heal the Bay so he is very passionate and knowledgeable about water policy issues. I didn't feel as if I was being forced to memorize information, but rather taught about relevant water issues that I may work on in the future. At times, his slides did not contain enough information, prompting me to look some facts up on my own. A few more quizzes may have been helpful to cement some of the information. Overall, I learned quite alot about where California water comes from, the current drought and water shortage issues, new sources of water, water policy, water rights, water commissions and agencies...This class was a great introduction into the world of water; something I knew very little about before hand. Without policy decisions to implement environmental protection, all of the scientific facts and research in the world would be useless. For this reason, I highly recommend Env 166, especially to environmental science students like myself, who need much more knowledge about policy and government.
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