Conservation Biology

Check out some of the social media campaigns developed by students in this class in Spring 2021 here and here

In 4.5 billion years of Earth history, there have never been an many species on the planet as there was until about 10,000 years ago. In just a geological blink of an eye, humans have become a major threat to species around the world. Starting with the extinction of the Ice Age mammals, which was almost certainly due at least partly to overhunting by humans, and accelerating in the past few hundred years, and particularly the past few decades, humans have created the leading edge of what will likely be a sixth mass extinction event. In this class, we will talk about the kinds of things that humans do to cause species to go extinct, why some kinds of species are more extinction-prone than others, and what kinds of things we can do to avert the worst of the extinction crisis.

This class will be a mix of typical lecture, discussions, hands-on demos with the kinds of software conservation biologists use, and guest lectures from speakers from around the world. Your big project in class will be a digital science communication campaign on a conservation topic of your choice. You’ll be able to choose the medium you work in (video, podcast, social media), define a target audience, and roll out your campaign as the semester progresses.