Teaching

GEOG 2540: Weather and Climate

Semester: Fall, 3 Credit Hours

Pre-req: Grade of C or better in a minimum of three credit hours from Environment & Geography courses numbered at the 1000 level

Have you ever wondered why Arizona is a desert whereas Florida is mixture of swamps and lush forest? Have you ever wondered why there are more tornados in Manitoba than British Columbia or Nova Scotia? Or why Nova Scotia experiences hurricanes but British Columbia does not? Or why fog is most common in the morning? Or why it was so warm in winter 2023/2024 in Canada? If you’ve ever asked questions like these, this is the class for you.

GEOG 2540 “examines the nature, controls, and observations of weather and the variation of climate in time and space” (U of M Course Catalog). “Nature and controls” means we need to understand physics. We will use logic, maps, graphs, and equations to describe the cycling of energy (e.g., temperature), moisture (e.g., humidity & precipitation), and mass (e.g., pressure & wind) throughout the atmosphere. “Observations” and “variation” can be understood via physical equations, too, but we also often analyze climate data through statistics.

Our overarching learning goal is to better understand how the Earth’s climate works as a complex system that produces our daily weather. This learning goal has two parts: Learning the physical theory of how climate and weather operate, and learning some techniques and skills for how to study those processes.

Finally, note that this class is taught through the lens of Western science, but I encourage you to expand your understanding of this topic beyond the framework of this course with other ways of knowing about weather and climate and their connections to other aspects of the integrated Earth system.

GEOG 4390 / 7440: Global Climate Change

Semester: Fall, 3 Credit Hours

Pre-req for GEOG 4390: A grade of C or higher in GEOG 3390: Introduction to Climate Change, or permission of instructor

GEOG 4390 and GEOG 7440: Climate Change is a combined undergraduate/graduate course with three main learning goals. Students who successfully complete this course will…

a)     Engage with and discuss the current state of knowledge of modern climate change 

b)    Analyze real climate datasets to make interpretations about the current state and future projections of the Earth’s climate.

c)     Communicate effectively about climate change in oral presentations. 

To build content knowledge, we will use a variety of sources, including the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Canada’s Changing Climate Report, recent peer-reviewed journal articles, and Indigenous accounts of climate change in the Arctic. The exact mix will depend on the semester (e.g., when new publications come out).

To build data analysis capabilities, we will use four exercises that implement real climate datasets that I have used to study historical and future climate change. These will be conducted in Jupyter Notebooks. The emphasis here is not on the coding itself, but on the data analysis techniques, and these notebooks will be used as preparation for deeper discussions about several current topics in climate change research. 

To build oral presentation skills, students will practice with short exercises and deliver two main presentations about a climate change topic of their choice: one for a scientific audience, and one for a “general public” audience. Each main presentation will be workshopped before the final summative assessment. All students will be better climate change communicators after completing this course because a) they will know the literature better and b) they will be more skillful public speakers.

GEOG 1290: Introduction to Physical Geography

Semester: Winter or Summer, 3 Credit Hours

The Earth is an interconnected system of air, water, land, and life. Understanding the components of this system and how they interact is essential for many human activities, from preparing crop rotations to managing a power grid to planning the best time of year to visit a tourist destination. The complexities of the Earth system are also just inherently fascinating. 

The purpose of this course is to provide a broad overview of Earth system science. Students will learn concepts in myriad disciplines, including meteorology, climatology, oceanography, hydrology, pedology, geology, glaciology, and biology. Because the content of this course is so diverse, the common learning goals focus on how scientists think about the Earth as a system (goals 1 and 2) and how scientists learn new things about that system (goals 3 and 4):

1)     Identify and describe fundamental components and relationships of the physical environment (atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere) that govern the transfer of energy and matter.

2)     Recognize various aspects of the natural Earth system -- especially the various forcings on and feedbacks within that system.

3)     Make observations about the physical environment using graphs, maps, and photos.

4)     Use observations to interpret (e.g., classify, compare/contrast, predict) aspects of the physical environment.