Noah Garrison
Department of Environment
AD
4.3
Overall Rating
Based on 19 Users
Easiness 3.6 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 4.4 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 3.8 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 4.4 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Uses Slides
  • Gives Extra Credit
  • Engaging Lectures
  • Would Take Again
  • Has Group Projects
GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS
25.3%
21.1%
16.9%
12.6%
8.4%
4.2%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

31.3%
26.1%
20.9%
15.7%
10.4%
5.2%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

32.6%
27.2%
21.7%
16.3%
10.9%
5.4%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

30.3%
25.3%
20.2%
15.2%
10.1%
5.1%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

23.4%
19.5%
15.6%
11.7%
7.8%
3.9%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

23.4%
19.5%
15.6%
11.7%
7.8%
3.9%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

27.1%
22.6%
18.1%
13.5%
9.0%
4.5%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

20.5%
17.0%
13.6%
10.2%
6.8%
3.4%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

18.5%
15.4%
12.3%
9.3%
6.2%
3.1%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

ENROLLMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
Clear marks

Sorry, no enrollment data is available.

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Reviews (16)

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Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 31, 2021

I thought Professor Garrison was an animated lecturer and clearly very passionate and interested in the material. That was super helpful for me, since I didn't find it as interesting but his energy helped me stay engaged. The lectures were pretty clear and well paced, but the exams were a bit difficult. The course was a bit chaotic because Professor Garrison taught the first four weeks, Professor Smith taught the next four, and the Professor Garrison came back for the last two weeks of the quarter. Because of this we did not get our midterm scores back til a bit later. Professor G gives prelecture quizzes for almost every lecture on the textbook readings, which ask very specific questions but you get unlimited attempts. The labs were easy and the TAs were incredibly kind and genuinely wanted to help students out (they even held a career panel for us where we could ask questions about research, grad school, working, etc.) The only things for our grades were pre-lec quizzes, the labs, the midterm, and the final. The two tests are each 25% so I would study early, and actually read the textbook because its helpful in filling in greater details that we don't have time for in lecture.

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Quarter: Winter 2024
Grade: A+
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
June 24, 2024

Loved Professor Garrison, but I loved my TAs for the class even more. This class was honestly lots of Earth Science, which is not super fun and you have lots of info to memorize, however the tests were really fair and I felt like the lab sections gave us way more time to talk about important environmental issues that seemed to concern us more. I’d say if you don’t have any interest in the Environment, don’t take this class, but if you’re a major student like me taking it with Prof Garrison was super great and made me excited about the program.

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Quarter: Winter 2024
Grade: A-
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
March 25, 2024

Covers variety of interesting topic; anyone interested in environmental science will likely enjoy this class. It's relatively easy; the midterm and final exams are somewhat difficult (but you can use a cheat sheet) and the rest of the workload is light. Has group projects and presentations (in lab) and extra credit opportunities. Engaging and inspiring overall!

Helpful?

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Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: A-
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
May 2, 2023

Professor Garrison is a good lecturer. His presentations were engaging and well related to the textbook material. The class grading was based on Labs, one-page papers on scientific articles once-ish to every-other week, and the midterm and final. My TA (Ariege) was very unclear about whether the labs were completion or correctness, they are NOT completion. You have to actually make sure you are getting the right answers. Just check with your classmates/TA at the end to make sure it's right.
The one-page papers were fine but my TA graded them kinda hard. Make sure you're really connecting the given article with the article that you find. There literally was no rubric so ask your TA a lot of questions about what they want in order to get a good grade. 85s on these almost brought my grade down to a B.
The tests weren't bad just do all of the textbook readings (as the class goes on!! do NOT try to cram, there is just way too much material so just keep up with the syllabus) and you get a one page cheat sheet which was greeeat. Make sure you copy down graphs and diagrams. All in all I really liked this course. Pretty easy, interesting (I might be biased as an envsci major), and labs were fun. I would take again. Ariege was a good TA but she just graded kind of hard but I would still recommend taking her just make sure you are clear about the criteria for the papers.

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Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: A+
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
April 6, 2023

The subject material was super interesting (as an environmental science major) and he also brought in professors from other fields like Conservation Biology and Environmental Policy/Justice. The midterm was surprisingly hard (the average was a C) but he provided extra credit to make up points. The final ended up not being as bad as the midterm and most people I heard got their grades bumped up. Overall, a great class and great professor!

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Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: A+
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Feb. 9, 2023

This class was great! Garrison clearly is passionate about the subject and his lectures are engaging and helpful. 50% of our grades were from lab-- three one-page discussion papers on an article, one group presentation, and labs on the other weeks-- and there was a couple extra credit opportunities. The midterm had an individual multiple choice and short answer sections, and a group multiple choice section. Same for the final. There were a couple guest lectures which were lowkey boring af, but there were a couple questions on the final about them. I would highly recommend if you are an environ major and this class made me feel good about my major choice :)

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Quarter: Winter 2022
Grade: B+
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
March 28, 2022

Professor Garrison and Professor McKinnon taught this class this quarter, and it was pretty organized for the most part. Sometimes lecture slides were posted late but it was manageable because the lecture recordings were posted pretty quick. Professor Garrison is friendly and engaging and was a great lecturer. I didn't really like learning about the rock stuff so much like tectonic plates and volcanoes but it was still somewhat interesting. In many lectures the professors made a connection to climate change or environmental issues though so that was cool. There's 2 instances in which you have to collaborate with a group so be ready for that. The pre lecture quizzes were nice and informational and you had unlimited tries. I'd take this class again! I only got a B+ because I didn't turn in a discussion 1 pager that was 5% of my grade but if you do all the work you'll be fine.

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Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: N/A
Sept. 13, 2021

selling loose-leaf vers. of this class's textbook! email *************

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Quarter: Winter 2019
Grade: B+
Jan. 6, 2021

I took this class with Noah, Rob Eagle, and Tom Smith. Noah taught the first five weeks on earth science, Tom Smith taught two weeks on conservation biology, and Rob Eagle taught the last three weeks on atmospheric and oceanic science. I think Tom Smith's portion of the class was the best for lecturing, engagement, and interesting material, whereas Rob Eagle's presentations could get too analytical and dry at times. Both the midterm and the final exam were both more difficult than I was expecting, being a lot more specific than the lectures were on certain topics.

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Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A+
July 1, 2020

As a class, ENVIRON 10 was okay but very hectic. They seem to change it a little bit each year, but when I took it, it was divided into 3 sections in the following order: Earth systems/processes, ecology/conservation, and geology/earth science. The focus of the course however is geology, and you even use a geology textbook. And for the record, this class is nothing like APES; APES is more comparable to LS7B tbh. Overall, the material can be somewhat interesting, but if you take this class kinda late into your career (even as early as 2nd year), you will find that some of the material is not new. Also, I don't blame anyone, but I also second that the course was pretty unorganized and had too much going on. I think that if you had no clue of environmental science, this is a great class to explore its different fields, but otherwise, I personally don't see a need to introduce us to so many topics in one class.

The first section was taught by Professor Tripati. She wasn't too engaging to be honest, but she was nice and approachable. She pretty much just read off the slides, and because her section was a review of AOS 1/2, I pretty much just screwed off during lecture. We also had a couple of cool speakers come in that really emphasized on the implications of environmental science on society, which was a really unique perspective. Tripati taught up until the midterm. There's a group portion and an individual portion, where you basically take it alone first, turn it in, then retake the same exam with your group. Make friends and choose a smart group, like seriously. Also, we all got shafted hard on the midterm because there were quite a few questions on obscure details about the guest speakers, and because they were so few questions, I didn't do so hot.

The next section was taught by Peter Kareiva, the director of the ioes, and he too was alright. He might initially come off as a critic of leftist politics/values, but he's more so trying to reinforce the importance of skepticism and not taking things for face value. He covered a lot of irl social justice movements that showed up on the final, and his slides have very few words on them. He also had a football that he would randomly throw into the lecture hall, and whoever caught it had to answer his question. I think it's definitely worthwhile to know him and at least attend his office hours, since he's a high profile individual. Oh, he also low key had a lot of reading and bamboozled us with pop quizzes, which he later revealed to just be no-harm extra credit. I did the reading for the first one and did well, but the second one didn't actually happen and was just a ploy to get us to read. What a guy.

Professor Garrison taught the last section, which was very heavy on geology and water. Although he's a good professor, he goes extremely fast and covers a lot of terminology, so it's important to read beforehand. He also was like the only one to use clicker questions, and he had quizzes that we had to do on CCLE before every lecture.

I can't say much about the final because it was toned down in response to COVID-19, but there were just a lot of random facts that I didn't think I'd need to know down the road. There's also an essay during the middle of the quarter, and the workshop was made mandatory, but it wasn't that helpful tbh. We got bamboozled again, where the first deadline was just so that we'd have a finished product for the writing workshop and could receive feedback.

Don't worry about the labs; they're really easy, and the TA's are helpful if you're lost. However, we did a presentation that had a time limit for one of the weeks, so if that happens again, you should probably rehearse it before you present.

So I personally did trash on all the assignments, getting an 80% on the midterm, a high 80 on the final, and a mid 80 on the essay, but I still managed to get an A+? Still perplexed about this, but I guess I shouldn't complain. Oh, part of this is probably because there's an extra credit assignment at the end of the quarter, and an A+ is like a 96% and above. But yeah, you gotta take this class if you're an environmental science major, and even if the content isn't the best, make friends, get to know the professors, and give it your best, because this won't be the last time you'll see these people in your undergraduate career.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 31, 2021

I thought Professor Garrison was an animated lecturer and clearly very passionate and interested in the material. That was super helpful for me, since I didn't find it as interesting but his energy helped me stay engaged. The lectures were pretty clear and well paced, but the exams were a bit difficult. The course was a bit chaotic because Professor Garrison taught the first four weeks, Professor Smith taught the next four, and the Professor Garrison came back for the last two weeks of the quarter. Because of this we did not get our midterm scores back til a bit later. Professor G gives prelecture quizzes for almost every lecture on the textbook readings, which ask very specific questions but you get unlimited attempts. The labs were easy and the TAs were incredibly kind and genuinely wanted to help students out (they even held a career panel for us where we could ask questions about research, grad school, working, etc.) The only things for our grades were pre-lec quizzes, the labs, the midterm, and the final. The two tests are each 25% so I would study early, and actually read the textbook because its helpful in filling in greater details that we don't have time for in lecture.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Winter 2024
Grade: A+
June 24, 2024

Loved Professor Garrison, but I loved my TAs for the class even more. This class was honestly lots of Earth Science, which is not super fun and you have lots of info to memorize, however the tests were really fair and I felt like the lab sections gave us way more time to talk about important environmental issues that seemed to concern us more. I’d say if you don’t have any interest in the Environment, don’t take this class, but if you’re a major student like me taking it with Prof Garrison was super great and made me excited about the program.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Winter 2024
Grade: A-
March 25, 2024

Covers variety of interesting topic; anyone interested in environmental science will likely enjoy this class. It's relatively easy; the midterm and final exams are somewhat difficult (but you can use a cheat sheet) and the rest of the workload is light. Has group projects and presentations (in lab) and extra credit opportunities. Engaging and inspiring overall!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: A-
May 2, 2023

Professor Garrison is a good lecturer. His presentations were engaging and well related to the textbook material. The class grading was based on Labs, one-page papers on scientific articles once-ish to every-other week, and the midterm and final. My TA (Ariege) was very unclear about whether the labs were completion or correctness, they are NOT completion. You have to actually make sure you are getting the right answers. Just check with your classmates/TA at the end to make sure it's right.
The one-page papers were fine but my TA graded them kinda hard. Make sure you're really connecting the given article with the article that you find. There literally was no rubric so ask your TA a lot of questions about what they want in order to get a good grade. 85s on these almost brought my grade down to a B.
The tests weren't bad just do all of the textbook readings (as the class goes on!! do NOT try to cram, there is just way too much material so just keep up with the syllabus) and you get a one page cheat sheet which was greeeat. Make sure you copy down graphs and diagrams. All in all I really liked this course. Pretty easy, interesting (I might be biased as an envsci major), and labs were fun. I would take again. Ariege was a good TA but she just graded kind of hard but I would still recommend taking her just make sure you are clear about the criteria for the papers.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: A+
April 6, 2023

The subject material was super interesting (as an environmental science major) and he also brought in professors from other fields like Conservation Biology and Environmental Policy/Justice. The midterm was surprisingly hard (the average was a C) but he provided extra credit to make up points. The final ended up not being as bad as the midterm and most people I heard got their grades bumped up. Overall, a great class and great professor!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: A+
Feb. 9, 2023

This class was great! Garrison clearly is passionate about the subject and his lectures are engaging and helpful. 50% of our grades were from lab-- three one-page discussion papers on an article, one group presentation, and labs on the other weeks-- and there was a couple extra credit opportunities. The midterm had an individual multiple choice and short answer sections, and a group multiple choice section. Same for the final. There were a couple guest lectures which were lowkey boring af, but there were a couple questions on the final about them. I would highly recommend if you are an environ major and this class made me feel good about my major choice :)

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Winter 2022
Grade: B+
March 28, 2022

Professor Garrison and Professor McKinnon taught this class this quarter, and it was pretty organized for the most part. Sometimes lecture slides were posted late but it was manageable because the lecture recordings were posted pretty quick. Professor Garrison is friendly and engaging and was a great lecturer. I didn't really like learning about the rock stuff so much like tectonic plates and volcanoes but it was still somewhat interesting. In many lectures the professors made a connection to climate change or environmental issues though so that was cool. There's 2 instances in which you have to collaborate with a group so be ready for that. The pre lecture quizzes were nice and informational and you had unlimited tries. I'd take this class again! I only got a B+ because I didn't turn in a discussion 1 pager that was 5% of my grade but if you do all the work you'll be fine.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: N/A
Sept. 13, 2021

selling loose-leaf vers. of this class's textbook! email *************

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Winter 2019
Grade: B+
Jan. 6, 2021

I took this class with Noah, Rob Eagle, and Tom Smith. Noah taught the first five weeks on earth science, Tom Smith taught two weeks on conservation biology, and Rob Eagle taught the last three weeks on atmospheric and oceanic science. I think Tom Smith's portion of the class was the best for lecturing, engagement, and interesting material, whereas Rob Eagle's presentations could get too analytical and dry at times. Both the midterm and the final exam were both more difficult than I was expecting, being a lot more specific than the lectures were on certain topics.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A+
July 1, 2020

As a class, ENVIRON 10 was okay but very hectic. They seem to change it a little bit each year, but when I took it, it was divided into 3 sections in the following order: Earth systems/processes, ecology/conservation, and geology/earth science. The focus of the course however is geology, and you even use a geology textbook. And for the record, this class is nothing like APES; APES is more comparable to LS7B tbh. Overall, the material can be somewhat interesting, but if you take this class kinda late into your career (even as early as 2nd year), you will find that some of the material is not new. Also, I don't blame anyone, but I also second that the course was pretty unorganized and had too much going on. I think that if you had no clue of environmental science, this is a great class to explore its different fields, but otherwise, I personally don't see a need to introduce us to so many topics in one class.

The first section was taught by Professor Tripati. She wasn't too engaging to be honest, but she was nice and approachable. She pretty much just read off the slides, and because her section was a review of AOS 1/2, I pretty much just screwed off during lecture. We also had a couple of cool speakers come in that really emphasized on the implications of environmental science on society, which was a really unique perspective. Tripati taught up until the midterm. There's a group portion and an individual portion, where you basically take it alone first, turn it in, then retake the same exam with your group. Make friends and choose a smart group, like seriously. Also, we all got shafted hard on the midterm because there were quite a few questions on obscure details about the guest speakers, and because they were so few questions, I didn't do so hot.

The next section was taught by Peter Kareiva, the director of the ioes, and he too was alright. He might initially come off as a critic of leftist politics/values, but he's more so trying to reinforce the importance of skepticism and not taking things for face value. He covered a lot of irl social justice movements that showed up on the final, and his slides have very few words on them. He also had a football that he would randomly throw into the lecture hall, and whoever caught it had to answer his question. I think it's definitely worthwhile to know him and at least attend his office hours, since he's a high profile individual. Oh, he also low key had a lot of reading and bamboozled us with pop quizzes, which he later revealed to just be no-harm extra credit. I did the reading for the first one and did well, but the second one didn't actually happen and was just a ploy to get us to read. What a guy.

Professor Garrison taught the last section, which was very heavy on geology and water. Although he's a good professor, he goes extremely fast and covers a lot of terminology, so it's important to read beforehand. He also was like the only one to use clicker questions, and he had quizzes that we had to do on CCLE before every lecture.

I can't say much about the final because it was toned down in response to COVID-19, but there were just a lot of random facts that I didn't think I'd need to know down the road. There's also an essay during the middle of the quarter, and the workshop was made mandatory, but it wasn't that helpful tbh. We got bamboozled again, where the first deadline was just so that we'd have a finished product for the writing workshop and could receive feedback.

Don't worry about the labs; they're really easy, and the TA's are helpful if you're lost. However, we did a presentation that had a time limit for one of the weeks, so if that happens again, you should probably rehearse it before you present.

So I personally did trash on all the assignments, getting an 80% on the midterm, a high 80 on the final, and a mid 80 on the essay, but I still managed to get an A+? Still perplexed about this, but I guess I shouldn't complain. Oh, part of this is probably because there's an extra credit assignment at the end of the quarter, and an A+ is like a 96% and above. But yeah, you gotta take this class if you're an environmental science major, and even if the content isn't the best, make friends, get to know the professors, and give it your best, because this won't be the last time you'll see these people in your undergraduate career.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
1 of 2
4.3
Overall Rating
Based on 19 Users
Easiness 3.6 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 4.4 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 3.8 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 4.4 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Uses Slides
    (13)
  • Gives Extra Credit
    (12)
  • Engaging Lectures
    (10)
  • Would Take Again
    (10)
  • Has Group Projects
    (11)
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