Undergraduate Courses (Under 400)
The Department offers courses and seminars for Graduate Students, Undergraduate Students (including First-Year Seminars), and courses that may be taken by both Graduate and Undergraduate Students. Please see the menu to the right for a full listing of courses. For courses offered during the current academic year, please use the “Courses” drop down menu.
50 First-Year Seminar: Mountain Environments (3). This course is on understanding the physical geography of mountain environments and the processes that have created them, shaped them, and sustained them.
52 Political Ecology of Health and Disease(3). This course examines the intersection of political, economic, social, and environmental systems that shape health and disease across spatial and temporal scales. A political ecological framework is used to examine such topics as how political forces and economic interests helped shape the HIV/AIDS and malaria pandemics in Africa and beyond. Honors version available.
53 First-Year Seminar: Battle Park: Carolina’s Urban Forest (3). An introduction to the study of urban forest landscapes through a series of field experiences in Carolina’s Battle Park.
54 First-Year Seminar: Global Change and the Carolinas (3). An examination of the ways in which change in the global physical environment, human induced and natural, might impact the Carolinas.
55 First-Year Seminar: Landscape in Science and Art (3). Explores viewing landscape from the perspective of science and of art, and investigates how an integration of both leads to a better understanding and appreciation of a landscape.
56 First-Year Seminar: Local Places in a Globalizing World (3). An examination of the relationship between globalization and localization in order to think about how we, as individuals and groups, can make a difference in the world.
58 First-Year Seminar: Making Myth-Leading Memories: Landscapes of Remembrance (3).This course considers memorial landscapes created to reinforce values symbolized by the person, group, or event memorialized. It looks at how disagreements and cultural changes affect memorial landscape interpretation.
59 First-Year Seminar: Space, Identity, and Power in the Middle East (3). This seminar examines the role traditional and modern spaces play in representations of the Middle East and how Middle Easterners engage these contested spaces to construct their cultural and political identities.
60 First-Year Seminar: Health Care Inequalities (3). This course will examine a variety of aspects of health care, including the biomedical system, health care in non-Western countries, alternative practitioners, beliefs about health, health policies, the role of various media, and healthy places. The emphasis is on the social sciences (geography, anthropology, sociology, mainly) of health.
61 First-Year Seminar: Climate Change in the American Southeast (3). Seminar participants, working in small groups, will run climate models and investigate current climate trends, combining the results to create scenarios of future climate for the southeast United States.
62 First-Year Seminar: The Culture of Technology (3). This first-year seminar uses the lens of culture to explore systems of meaning and values, and relations of social power, that are invested in technologies.
63 First-Year Seminar: The Problem with Nature and Its Preservation (3). Alternative conceptualizations of nature in Western culture and how these meanings help create the landscapes in which we live and allow us to evaluate the implications of efforts to preserve nature.
64 First-Year Seminar: Vietnam (3). Explores modern Vietnam and situates the American war in broader spatial and historical context. Draws on fact, fiction, and visual media to introduce a fascinating place, rich in history, and to animate a geographic imagination students can take anywhere.
65 First-Year Seminar: Climate Change and the Media (3). Examines the popular debate on global warming and its presentation in the media. Covers the scientific basis of climate change, focusing on how the science is presented, distorted, and debated in the public sphere.
67 First-Year Seminar: Politics of Everyday Life. (3) Seminar examines the ways that politics, especially contests over territory, are part of our day-to-day life. We will explore a range of cases, from immigration policy and rhetoric in the United States, to popular representations of geopolitics in film, to the politics of family planning in India.
89 First-Year Seminar: Special Topics (3). Special topics course. Content will vary each semester.
110 The Blue Planet: An Introduction to Earth’s Environmental Systems (3). Emphasizes geographic patterns and interrelationships in energy, climate, terrain, and life. Develops integrative view of how atmospheric, hydrologic, geomorphic, and biotic processes create global patterns in the environment. Incorporates influence of human activities on Earth. Class will help students understand the natural environment, both globally and in North Carolina.
111 Weather and Climate (3). An introduction to the nature and causes of weather variability and climate change and their impact on human activity. No laboratory.
115 Maps: Geographic Information from Babylon to Google (3). Introduces the science and art of map making and will lay the conceptual foundation necessary to understand how and why maps are made and used.
120 World Regional Geography (PWAD 120) (3). A survey of the geographic structure of human activity in major world regions and nations. Emphasizes current developments related to population, urbanization, and economic activity.
121 Geographies of Globalization (3). This course examines places and the connections between places to build critical understandings of the role of human geographies in global economic, political, social, and cultural systems.
123 Cultural Geography (3). How population, environment, and human culture as expressed in technology and organization interact over space and time.
124 Gender and Place: Feminist Geographies (3). This course explores the relationship between gender and place and introduces feminist approaches to key geographical concepts. We will study how places that we live in shape our gender identities and how gender relations affect our worlds. Topics include bodies, home, city, migration, development, nationalism, and war.
125 Cultural Landscapes (3). Explores how everyday culture helps create the landscapes and places in which we live and what these landscapes tell us about ourselves.
130 Development and Inequality: Global Perspectives (3). An introduction to historical and contemporary ideas about practices and meanings of development. Students will explore “development” in a global landscape of poverty, power, and struggles over inequality..
141 Geography for Future Leaders (3). In this course, students develop geographic concepts and skills and use them to navigate real-world social and environmental challenges. Co-taught by a physical and human geographer, the course provides students with essential building blocks for becoming active and engaged leaders and citizens in a rapidly changing world.
210 Global Issues in the 20th Century (ANTH 210, GLBL 210, HIST 210, POLI 210) (3). Survey of international social, political, and cultural patterns in selected societies of Africa, Asia, America, and Europe, stressing comparative analysis of conflicts and change in different historical contexts. LAC recitation sections offered in French, German, and Spanish.
212 Environmental Conservation and Global Change (3). Survey of environmental change as driven by physical processes and human activity. Problem-solving methods are explored. Focus on issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, extinction, pollution, wetland loss. This course will provide significant background in physical geography in the context of today’s most pressing environmental concerns and with reference to the societal implications and management strategies.
215 Introduction to Spatial Data Science (3). This course will introduce students to data science with a focus on spatial (geographic) data, data that are referenced to a location on Earth’s surface. Students will learn concepts and techniques to apply various facets of data science practice, including data collection, management, and integration, descriptive modeling, exploratory spatial data analysis, and communication via visualization and mapping. Real world examples and datasets spanning physical, social, and health sciences will be used throughout the course.
222 Health and Medical Geography (3). The human ecology of health is studied by analyzing the cultural/environmental interactions that lie behind world patterns of disease distribution, diffusion and treatment, and the ways these are being altered by development.
225 Space, Place, and Difference (WMST 225) (3). Gender, race, and class are examined in terms of the spatial patterns of everyday life, regional patterns, and global patterns.
228 Urban Geography (3). Explores the evolution, patterns, and processes of urbanization and development of cities and city systems. Emphasis on the origin, growth, and spatial distribution of cities and on the internal spatial organization of activities within cities.
230 The World at Eight Billion (3).
232 Agriculture, Food, and Society (3). A study of environmental parameters, cultural preferences, technological developments, and spatial economic infrastructure that result in world patterns of food consumption, production, and distribution.
237 Natural Resources (3). An analysis of selected biological and mineral resources of the world with particular emphasis on their distribution, utilization, and management policies and on their social and economic implications.
240 Introduction to Environmental Justice (3). Environmental justice is about social equity and its relationship to the environment. This course provides an introduction to the principles, history, and scholarship of environmental justice. It traces the origins of the movement in the US and globally and its relationship to environmentalism. Students will use case studies and engagement to become familiar with environmental justice concerns related to food systems, environmental health, climate change, and economic development.
253 Introduction to Atmospheric Processes (ENEC 253) (4). Prerequisites, MATH 231 and either CHEM 102 or PHYS 114. Includes one-hour laboratory. Atmospheric processes including radiation, dynamics, and thermodynamics are emphasized. Circulations across a range of temporal and spatial scales are described. Links between environmental problems and the atmosphere are explored.
254 American Historical Geographies (3). A study of selected past geographies of the United States with emphasis on the significant geographic changes in population, cultural, and economic conditions through time. Previously offered as FOLK/GEOG 454. (GHA)
259 Society and Environment in Latin America (3). This survey course examines political, cultural, and biophysical dimensions of human- environment relations across the ecologically diverse and historically rich region of Latin America. It draws on multiple data sources, perspectives, and media to explore sub-regions and their biocultural histories, including the Caribbean, Andes, Amazon, Central and North America, and their relationship with the United States.
260 North America’s Landscapes (3). A survey of the cultural and physical landscapes of the United States and Canada. Emphasis on landscape evolution, present distributions, and interactions between people and their environment.
261 The South (3). Present-day southern United States, approached historically through a study of its physical, economic, and cultural environment.
262 Geography of North Carolina (3). A survey of the cultural, economic, and physical diversity of North Carolina. Emphasizes regional patterns, historical changes, and the appearance of the landscape.
263 Environmental Field Studies in Siberia (ENEC 263) (4). This course explores the biogeography of Siberia and gives students practical training on how to do field work in field ecology and physical geography.
264 Conservation of Biodiversity in Theory and Practice (ENEC 261) (3). This course will give students a multidisciplinary introduction to growing field of biodiversity preservation.
265 Eastern Asia (ASIA 265) (3). Spatial structure of population, urbanization, agriculture, industrialization, and regional links in China, Japan, and Korea.
266 Society and Environment in Southeast Asia (3). This survey integrates sociological, biophysical, and geographical elements to examine interactions of population and environment across the ecologically-diverse and historically-rich region of Southeast Asia. Draws on multiple data sources, perspectives, and media to explore Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, the Philippines, and neighboring countries.
267 South Asia (ASIA 267) (3). Introduces students to the geography of South Asia, including an overview of the physical environment, cultural practices, and economic development. Emphasizes the political geography of South Asia and political and social processes such as nationalism and colonialism that have played a formative role in the region.
268 Geography of Africa (3). Focuses on dynamic sociocultural, political, economic, and environmental issues shaping contemporary sub-Saharan Africa to develop an understanding of major drivers of stark physical, environmental, and socioeconomic contrasts across the continent and trajectories for the future. Themes include land use and environmental change, historical legacies, urbanization, economic growth, and trade.
269 Human-Environment Interactions in the Galapagos Islands (3). The social and ecological implications of resource conservation and economic development in a World Heritage Site are examined in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador.
270 Geography of Contemporary China (3). This course provides a systematic introduction to China as an emerging political and economic power. From a geographic perspective, this course addresses uneven human and physical landscapes, the historical evolution and current status of the natural environment, economic development, and human well-being.
281 Ethnographies of Globalization: From ‘Culture’ to Decolonization (3). This course will provide lower level undergraduate students with a survey of ethnographic research in geography and related fields. We will examine studies from work, labor, and gender, to indigenous youth and decolonization..
293 Freedom Farming (3). The objective of Freedom Farming is to understand–in theory and in practice–the relationship between farming, health, and social justice among Black communities throughout the African diaspora. To this end we will investigate the history of agriculture’s place in Black liberation movements; engage theories that orient these movements. Students also contribute to a local freedom farm. APPLES service-learning.
295 Undergraduate Research in Geography (3). Permission of the instructor. For students who wish to participate in departmental research programs. May be taken twice.
296 Independent Study (1–21). Permission of the instructor. Special reading and research in geography under the supervision of a selected instructor. Course may not be taken more than twice.
334 Human Ecology of Health and Disease (3). Examines the role of the interactions of cultures, environments, and human diseases in the quest for sustainable agriculture by examining the cultural ecology of agriculture systems and their human diseases.
341 Hydrology, Ecology, and Sustainability of the Humid Tropics (3). The Tropics have some of the largest river flows in the world. Three billion people live in humid tropical regions, yet many of them lack adequate water supply. This course focuses on the water cycle of tropical regions and the interactions between hydrology and ecology with an emphasis on sustainability.
370 Introduction to Geographic Information (3). A survey of geographic data sources including maps, photos, digital images, Census information, and others. Emphasis is on appropriate uses, limitations, and skilled interpretation in physical and human geography applications.
390 Contemporary Topics in Geography (1–12). Exploration of topics in contemporary geography.
391 Quantitative Methods in Geography (3). This course provides an introduction to the application of statistical methods to geographic problems and to statistical packages in their solution. Attention given to spatial data analysis and sampling methods.
392 Research Methods in Geography (3). Introduces geographic research methods and develops skills to conduct independent research. Themes include spatial analysis, knowledge production, methodology, theory and evidence, and principles of informed argument. Students gain experience with multiple methods applicable to the study of diverse topics.