Exam 1 Study Guide

Envs 4950 Seminar in Env Studies, Spring 2020, O'Donnell

last updated: March 7, 2020

Exam date: Wednesday, March 11, 2020

This exam counts for 15% of the final grade.

Exam Guidelines and Format

The exam will present you with a choice of 10 identification prompts--significant quotes, terms or phrases, proper nouns--which will in turn be drawn from 18 prompts listed below.

Out of the 10 prompts on the exam, you will in turn choose 7, for each of which you will write a "mini essay" -- that is, three or four clear, complete, self-explanatory sentences. In each mini-essay, you must identify 1) the context or definition; 2) the author(s) and text(s) with which prompt is associated; 3) an important issue associated with the prompt.

Please note that, while you may write practice responses ahead of time, I require you to compose your responses on the spot, during the exam, rather than copying pre-composed responses directly from your notes.

18 Prompts

1 - anthropocentrists

2 - ecocentrists

3 - Feedback loops (global cascades)

4 - We've already left behind the narrow window of environmental conditions that allowed the human animal to evolve.

5 - The Green Revolution

6 - "We need to rethink… what we mean when we talk about ancient 'dark ages.'"

7 - The Neolithic Revolution

8 - the plains bison, the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet

9 - extirpation

10 - Endangered Species Act of 1972

11 - Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model

12 - the idea of a balance in nature

13 - trophic cascade

14 - "'What does not kill me becomes a part of me…'"

15 - "What if he combined these three strands -- science, meditation, and creative writing?"

16 - Late Pleistocene extinctions (Quaternary Extinction Event)

17 - the rewilding of the planet

18 - Nature Deficit Disorder

All the Texts We've Read So Far, This Semester, In the Order That We've Read Them

- "What is Environmental Studies?" Michael E. Soule and Daniel Press. BioScience 48, 5 (May 1998): 397-405. 

- In The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells (2019):

"Part I: Cascades," p3-36. 

"Part II: Elements of Chaos," Heat Death p39; Hunger p49.

"Part II: Elements of Chaos," Drowning p59; Wildfire p70.

"Part II: Elements of Chaos," Disasters No Longer Natural p78; Freshwater Drain p86; Dying Oceans p94.

"Part II: Elements of Chaos," Unbreathable Air p100; Plagues of Warming p109; Economic Collapse p115.

"Part II: Elements of Chaos," Climate Conflict p124; Systems p131. 

- In The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2018:

"The Case Against Civilization" by Lanchester, p53-62. 

"Tragedy of the Common" by MacKinnon, p114-23.

"The Island Wolves" by Todd, p84-98. 

"David Haskell Speaks for the Trees" by Kvinta, p158-171.

"Pleistocene Park" by Andersen, p1-22.