Class Readings and Plans for Thursday, October 1
Introduction to the Class
The History of Ecology

• Read the two assigned readings below before class. If at all possible, before 9:00 on the night before class, please post your thoughts on whether you think there is common ground between history and ecology in understanding the past and thus the present and future of our environment. This will get you into the habit early on of reading and posting before class.
• We will briefly go over class requirements and expectations
• The professors will give introductions to themselves and their research interests (15-20 minutes each).
• Students will be asked to give short introductions to themselves and their interests
• We will work together to come up with a list of current environmental issues that we think we might learn more about by considering them historically. These might include, for example,
  • Population expansion
  • Agricultural change and intensification
  • Forests and fire
  • Diseases and epidemics
• We will discuss some sample projects that might provide examples for comparison to your own projects for this class

• Levin, Simon, The Evolution of Ecology, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2010.
• Worster, Donald, Disturbing the Earth, from Nature's Economy, second edition, 1994.