Exam 1 Study Guide

ENVS 4950 Environmental Studies Capstone Seminar, Spring 2022, O'Donnell

last updated: February 24, 2022

Exam date: Wednesday, March 9

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--which will be drawn from the 17 prompts listed below.

Out of the 10 prompts on the exam, you will in turn choose 8, for each of which you will write a "mini essay" -- that is, three or four clear, complete, self-explanatory sentences -- in which you identify 1) the context or definition; and 2) an important issue associated with the prompt. Also 3) if the term or concept is associated with a particular text that we read in class, which text is it?

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

17 Prompts (10 of these will appear on the exam)

1. conservation vs. preservation

2. anthropocentrism vs. ecocentrism

3. Anthropocene

4. … the idea of a primitive deity certainly allowed colonial powers and observers to ignore the political concerns of the Tonga."

5. functional extinction

6. environmental DNA

7. global worming

8. "Perhaps it's not a matter of whether worms are good or bad. Maybe such projections of human values… are what got us into this mess in the first place, Dobson says."

9. The insect apocalypse.

10. flagship species; keystone species; indicator species

11. neonicotinoids

12. "Heat frays everything."

13. "climate depression" and "environmental grief"

14. the Haber–Bosch process

15. the Green Revolution

16. entomophagy

17. "… the human/nature duality that lives near the heart of many philosophies is, from a biological perspective, illusory."