Dr. Illes is a great lecturer and she is good at it, but she might be the toughest teacher I have ever met. Do not take this course if you want to have a nice GPA. The class is not easy and I personally regret taking it.
For this class, there will be several labs and lab works related to that, one conservation module each week, one midterm of multiple choice and blank filling, and a similar final.

•Some pros of the class:
you really get to know animal preservation and biodiversity, and geology in general. The lectures are clear and easy to follow, although the topics are quite broad.

•Some cons of the class:
No recording for lecture; no microphone (although tons of people at the back could not hear her very well); no curving (although mean score was low); no study list for exams (which she promised to give us one); no make-up exams; no words and main points on PPT; no late submission for assignments for any reason; no textbook

The professor does not take attendance for lectures, but it is important to go to them because the only way to catch up is relying on others' notes. She also assume that students get sick only because of contagious diseases but not being aware of other physical and mental wellnesses, and she does not let student to catch up during office hour for getting sick because that is not her problem.
The conservation modules that we need to study are meaningless and get more and more confusing. The professor assign this module and expect us to be experts, but what really matters is the questions at the end of every module that might appear on the exam.
The labs are kind of fun but I don't get why we need to do these tbh.
The exam was disastrous, because every session has their own sets of questions (because she got comments about how unreasonable the tests were from past students and now she lets TAs to make the questions), which means different degree of difficulties for each sections and different point distribution; pretty unfair. Plus, the lecture covered A LOT of details and those were on the exam. You need to memorize everything on the lecture basically. No study list makes it even harder.
There is also a story map that we need to make, which I get the intent behind is to raise awareness for endangered species, but the structure of the how project does not make sense. We need to make a very specific and detailed research outline, but the presentation of the story map should not be more than 3 minutes, but also not less than 2:50 min otherwise you will not have any credit, which is again, unreasonable.

I don't understand why other comments say that the class is easy. This class isn't hard, but it is definitely not easy. Comparing to other GEs I have taken, this is the worst one. Generally it is not very friendly to students.

Not the most engaging class, there is a of variety of topics - no textbook makes the class a bit hard to follow. Feels like we cover a wide variety of topics and the connection between them is unclear. Besides that the labs are very manageable and the workload outside of class is very small/

Tbh I originally signed up for the course because I had a bad enrollment time but I ended up loving the class. The lectures were super engaging and I loved professor Illes short stories and personal anecdotes. The field labs were super fun and I enjoyed getting to look around Sage hill and the UCLA garden. The labs are graded the harshest out of any of the class material. My tip is to start them before class if you can, that way the material is more manageable during lab. The discussions overall are chill though. My TA was nice and knowledgable but didn't really understand personal space which as a woman (or really anyone) is kind of frustrating. Some things to be cautious about. The lectures ARE NOT recorded. If you don't go to class or have a very kind peer who records the lectures for you, you will not be able to obtain the material. There is no textbook for the class which is nice in terms of both having outside material to go over. There is also no actual homework which is a plus. The exams are pretty simple, mainly multiple choice and matching. For reference I studied for about an hour and got a 100% on the midterm. The final project was fun to complete and although I disliked it at the time I'm glad the professor had us turn in portions of it throughout the quarter since it made the end presentation SO much easier to complete. I'd recommend this class to anyone since an A is easily obtainable so long as you go to lecture, complete the labs, and put effort into the final project. Plus, you'll come out of the course with tons of fun animal facts :)

I took this my first quarter at UCLA and I thought it was pretty easy. The lectures are very surface level and it was about animals and the environment, the class is about memorizing basically. The lab section was an absolute joke though, learned nothing, but easy points. I feel like I had somewhat of a unique experience though since my TA left halfway through the quarter so she lightened up on the lab assignments. So it was easy, but not the easiest. We had a final presentation on an extinct animal and a multiple choice final and midterm. Pay attention to the little reviews that she does during class before the tests, she basically gives you all the answers then. Be sure to pay attention in class and take notes and you will do well!! We also talked about current events in the beginning of every class which was interesting.