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and oceans, and will examine seven case studies that will help to bring alive the grave
problems of mismanaging coastal and economic resources: the Black Sea, Newfoundland,
the Louisiana Region of the Gulf of Mexico, Belize, the Marshall Islands, and Antarctica.
MACS 0630 – Life on a Water Planet
Life on a Water Planet has four broad aims: (1) to provide a holistic and current
perspective on key water issues that includes ecological, socio-economic, historical and
cultural perspectives, together with consideration of the water needs of other species;
(2) to provide a forum for sharing understandings and perspectives; (3) to help you shift
your perception of our planet from "the earth" to "water"; (4) to encourage you to take
information and knowledge about water issues from a broad base and apply it to your
own community or individual situation. The course is organized into ten units which
involve readings available as direct links with the course homepage, online activities and
discussion, and optional web resources for further exploration and study.
MACS 0636 – Marine Mammal Management
This course is essentially a interdisciplinary approach to examining the present state of
the relationship between marine mammals, people and the environment: as this has
evolved over time, as it stands today and as it is likely to be for the future, whether by
default or by design.
MACS 0647 – Iraq: Restoring the Marshlands
International Coastal Zone Restoration in the Marshlands of Iraq: Throughout the 1990's
the regime of Saddam Hussein committed genocide and ecocide against the people and
environment of Mesopotamia-the vast marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers in Southern Iraq. The government did this through a secret "Plan for the Marshes"
to drain away its life-giving water and attack, kill and scatter its half-million inhabitants
who were predominantly Sunni Moslem. Today, the former regime is gone and the
country is occupied by other forces, but Mesopotamia is still a depopulated wasteland.
MACS 0655 – Environmental Remote Sensing
Environmental Remote Sensing & Geographic Information System: This course assumes
that you have an interest in Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS)
and large-scale Earth observation, and wish to learn about using these tools to study the
Earth and its processes. It doesn't matter whether you consider yourself a chemist,
physicist, biologist, geologist or geographer, or simply have a reasonable grounding and
interest in the Earth Sciences. Nonetheless, you must be prepared to grapple with some
basic ideas of Physics. The distance-learning course is designed to be accessible and to
give a general induction to a wide scope of relevant topics.
MACS 0664 – Internship in Coastal Policy
Students enrolled in this course are expected to invest the equivalent of 3 hours per
week for 14 weeks (i.e. at least 42 hours) in their internship. This can be done at a
research organization, private company or consulting firm; local, county, state or federal
agency; or other approved venue that is related to coastal zone activities. In addition to
hands-on work, each intern will also keep an academic journal of internship activities.
The journal will be submitted for review for the final grade. The student's supervisor at
the internship venue will also evaluate the student. Permission and approval of
supervising Professor is required before you enroll in this class.
