This class is soo easy and fun. He is often enthusiastic and the material is pretty interesting and easy to understand. Definitely get a good connection with your TA as they grade you for participation and attendance (20%) and a project (30%). The midterm (20%) is very easy: just read the book and memorize the terms. The final is pretty long in the sense you should had read all of the readings which can really pile up. Take this class with this professor! Easy good grade

This class is a great GE for anyone who needs their science requirement fulfilled. The professor is very nice and helpful, and clearly passionate about his work, going as far as to bring in food for us to taste in lectures. There are weekly responses based on the readings that aren't too difficult, as well as vocab words and multiple choice questions (also easy) from the textbooks that are due in section. This is the basis for both the midterm and final exam, which are easily manageable in terms of studying.

This is the BEST class I have ever taken! The professor is just pure gold and amazing. He is funny and genuinely cares about students. You can feel his passion and experienced knowledge of the class topics. It opens up a whole new perspective for me to view the world, the food system, and the environments.
For the grading, you can get an A with ease because the contents are so engaging and they are lenient graders. It is hard not to pay attention or not to meet the requirements.

Basset is an AMAZING professor. He really cares about the class and the subject and makes for an interesting quarter. The class is also really easy if you keep up with the reading.

Definitely the best GE class, very easy to get an A as long as you read the required texts. I genuinely feel like I've learned a lot from this class. Overall, the class is very well structured and Professor Bassett is the best!

It was an easy class! Not only is Basset a great and caring professor, but so are the TAs! I really liked the material and it was actually interesting, highly recommend this class!

Professor Basset is one of the nicest professors I have ever had if not the nicest. He is really passionate about what he does and is always willing to help and wants you to succeed. However, I thought this class was going to be more about the history of LA and urban green areas but it is more about gardening, which was not as interesting as I had hoped.

James Basset is seriously the best professor ever. His lectures are extremely interesting, and he always took the time to do some sort of hands-on demonstration. Jennifer Jay (the 2nd lecturer for the course), is also quite interesting, although her lectures can sometimes be monotonous.
Overall - take this class! Very enjoyable!

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.