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Grad Keywords & Concepts

These are the key concepts that inform much of the scholarly work in the Department of Environmental Studies. 

It is expected that most students will be familiar with these concepts prior to joining our program; all of our graduate students will master these concepts by the end of their first year, sufficient to teach at an introductory undergraduate level.

We explore how different scholarly traditions engage these concepts as part of the first-year graduate courses (201 A, B, M, N).  We also expect these core concepts to form part of the breadth of knowledge covered in prequalifying exams for all ENVS students.

There are suggested readings listed below the keywords in certain areas intended to help compliment your familiarity with these key concepts. 

    Ways of Knowing

  • Covered in courses ENVS 201A and B:

    Critical Theory
    Deductive
    Epistemology
    Inductive
    Inference
    Grant writing
    Modernism/post-Modernism
    Positivism
    Proximate vs. ultimate causes

    • Ecology & Evolution

  • Covered in ENVS 201A:

    Adaptation & Traits
    Basic ecological models
    Causes of species extinction
    Density dependence
    Disturbance
    Interaction webs
    Landscape Ecology
    Measures of diversity
    Metapopulations
    Natural Selection
    Predator-prey dynamics
    Scales of diversity
    Succession
    Theory of Island Biogeography
    Trophic cascades

    Suggested readings: 
    Gotelli, N.  2008. A Primer of Ecology, 4th edition. Sinauer
    Futuyma, D.  2005.  Evolution.  Sinauer

    • Geography & Political Economy

  • Covered in ENVS 201A:

    Capital
    Commodity chain
    Development
    Environmental determinism/possibilism
    Globalization
    Governance
    Hegemony
    Hybrid systems
    Institution
    Nation-state
    Neo-liberalism
    Political ecology
    Political economy
    Risk
    Uneven development

    Suggested reading:
    Peet, R., P. Robbins, and M. Watts.  2011. Global Political Ecology. Routledge

    • Earth Sciences

  • Covered in ENVS 201B:

    Carbon cycle
    El Niño Southern Oscillation
    Global warming
    Hydrologic cycle
    Nitrogen cycle
    Renewable technologies

    Suggested reading:
    Mackenzie, F.T.. 2010 Our Changing Planet.  Prentice-Hall

    • Economics & Policy

  • Covered in ENVS 201B:

    Property rights/Common pool resources
    Contingent valuation
    Economic efficiency
    Ecosystem-based management
    Energy policy
    Environmental and Regional planning
    Externality
    Labor theory of ownership
    Market/Market failures
    Procedures and roles of three branches of U.S. government
    Property regimes
    Social/Environmental Justice
    Social capital
    Stewardship
    Transaction cost
    U.S. environmental policy: ESA/CWA/NEPA
    Utilitarianism

    Suggested readings:
    Harris. 2006. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A contemporary approach. 
    Rosenbaum, W.A.  2010. Environmental Politics and Policy.  CQ Press

    • Cross-Cutting Topics

  • Covered in 201A, B, M and N:

    Adaptation
    Global change
    Mitigation
    Resilience
    Scale
    Sustainability
    Vulnerability

    • Quantitative Skills

  • Covered in ENVS 201N:

    Formal hypothesis testing
    Frequentist vs. Bayesian
    Probability distributions
    Read basic graphs, formulas
    Read basic graphs, formulas as used in ecology
    Surveys, experiments, models, theory