Santa Fe Institute

Perspectives in Human Ecology Taught as Anthropology

• Instructor(s): Burger/Burnside/Okie
• Institution: University of New Mexico
• Category: Social Science
• Description: This course is intended to give graduate students and senior-level undergraduates a deep understanding of large scale patterns and processes in human ecology. Students will view human ecology from the complementary perspectives of biogeography and macroecology, showing patterns across space and time, and system dynamics, focusing on ways energy, materials, and information are processed and transformed in social systems. The ways in which humans follow and alter broad-scale ecological patterns in time and space will be explored and potential explanations for these patterns will be examined. Participants will get a broad introduction to the associated literature as well as practice interpreting actual datasets through a research project. They will leave with a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary understanding of human ecology and with the intellectual tools to contribute to this blossoming field. Course overview: Focus on large-scale patterns and processes in human ecology Interdisciplinary perspectives from biogeography and macroecology: showing patterns across space and time system dynamics, focusing on ways energy, materials, and information are processed and transformed in social systems Broad introduction to associated literature and practice interpreting actual datasets through a research project.