New course: GG387 - Catchment & Glob Biogeochem
‘GG387 - Catchment & Glob Biogeochem’ has been accepted because Laurier did not offer any undergraduate-level courses on either catchment or global biogeochemistry. Dr. Venkiteswaran argued understanding and addressing environmental problems such as nutrient pollution, harmful algal blooms, and human-induced climate change requires a knowledge of biogeochemistry at different spatial scales.
Topics such as the global carbon cycle and the fate of nutrients in rivers and lakes will be addressed. Students will learn about how the ‘small watershed technique’ and ‘whole-ecosystem manipulation’ are used to predict the many ways human impacts will affect large-scale biogeochemical cycles.
This new course will support Laurier's institutional strengths in environment and water science and is designed to have broad appeal and provide students with the knowledge required to propose science and policy-based solutions.
This course is relevant for students in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Department of Biology, and Department of Chemistry, which did not previously offer a comparable course.
Dr. Jason Venkiteswaran has the privilege to be the first to teach the course. As a biogeochemist, he will be able to bring his current research topics on boreal streams, harmful algal blooms, and river health into the course.
Eville Gorham's foundational paper Biogeochemistry: its origins and development (1991, Biogeochemistry 13(3): 199–239, doi: 10.1007/BF00002942) will be discussed in the first class in order to help students identify how their discipline fits into a biogeochemical world-view.
GG281 and GG282 are required.
The department looks forward to recognizing this course's success.