Special attention is given to environmental stewardship issues including use of insecticides, biological control, integrated pest management, and impact of cultivation on formation of pest faunas. Presents systematic botany of local woody flora including identification by foliage, twigs, wood, and bark, and trees of major economic and ecological importance worldwide. Given in the context of ethical and global questions of deforestation, global warming trends, old growth forest values, lumbering, forest ecosystem restoration, and land stewardship. A field course that centers on the ecology of northern Michigan fauna from a stewardship perspective. Included are individual student projects.
Aquatic life is studied in lakes, ponds, bogs, marshes, and streams and in the laboratory.
The course assesses human impacts on aquatic species and ecosystems, presents procedures for the stewardship of aquatic habitats, and introduces aquatic restoration ecology. Field studies include non-commercial and commercial fisheries in the Great Lakes region, ecological dynamics of fisheries exploitation and population ecology, fishing techniques, and fishing rights and regulation. Offered between the spring college semester and the end of the spring high school semester to provide prospective teachers and naturalists with an opportunity to investigate the natural history of this very active time of year. This course applies ecological principles and environmental ethics to redeeming and restoring degraded and damaged ecosystems and endangered species. Field studies include analysis of restoration and rehabilitation work with the Kirtland Warbler, an officially designated wild river, coastal dunes, kettle-hole bogs, old growth forest, deforested lands, degraded residential and farming sites, and abandoned oil wells.