EES C2300

Basically no work for lecture (unless you want to read the textbook chapters but I think you can just read the chapter summaries for each chapter and do well enough on the exam). Lab however is quite dense but this is for the class overall and not just Professor Olsen. We have a whole lab report due every other week (6 in total over the semester) so 2 lab reports for each professor in the course since there are three total. The weeks where we don't have a lab report, we have a discussion section and get our lab reports back for revisions where you usually add another thing to the lab report like another journal article to cite in the discussion section and respond to the comments your TA made. I think you stress for the lab grades really depends on which TA you have because some TAs grade a lot harsher than others and take longer for the slides so you're stuck in lab longer. Most days, you are able to get out of lab like 30 mins early. They also don't tell you the class average for exams for some reason but that isn't specific to Prof Olsen. They also don't curve each individual exam. There's not much transparency over if and how exams will be curved? The profs seem to not tell the TAs much or maybe mine is just clueless. Apparently the class is curved at the end overall. I got a 66 on Prof Olsen's exam, 92 on Prof Palmer's exam, and haven't taken Prof Dyhrman's exam yet so I'…

The workload peaks at first with the museum visits and lab work, but then drops with subsequent labs taking less time to complete and report. However, at the end of the semester, the final may be a take-home, which also may require some work. I think the profs decide at the beginning the semester how they will work it with the class. We had three essays, one for each prof, to write, with some research for each one. Also, keeping up with the main facts as you go along is a good approach, and making notecards works. I thought the way the workload was organized that it made for a really good learning experience, so I enjoyed the hard work at the beginning and also felt that I was being immersed in the subject, so that it made the rest of the classes more meaningful and informative. I guess to each his or her own, but I would highly recommend this class if you have the interest in the subject.

The labs can be completed in class, although most people seemed to finish their reports at home. There is reading and studying of these basic systems, but really a pleasant winding down of the class, after the intensive hours at the beginning running around the various scientific institutions of the city. Perhaps harder for those new to the subject, so you should make sure you know what you should be taking from the class and be prepared to know for exams.

Out of all the Life Systems professors, I would have to say Professor Olsen is my least favorite. I will say that he is obviously very passionate about his lecture topics and knowledgeable. However, this dude zooms through the lecture slides so fast. I literally kept feeling like I had missed a class that I was supposed to take before this in order to understand what he was talking about (especially when he was talking about archaebacteria and just everything about the origin of life on Earth basically). This dude puts 4 slides onto one page so overall, I think we went through like 800 slides (granted that some of them were like table of contents but still that was so much to zoom through). I talked to a lot of other students, and they felt the same way about this. Another thing, his exam was by far so much harder than Professor Palmer's. The wording on the exam was extremely confusing and the answer choices were unclear. It felt like he was questioning us on things that we had never learned before our only briefly talked about. I think the average for the exam was 64 in my lab section compared to the 86 on Professor Palmer's exam. All the professors do record their lectures though so you can get away with not going to class all the time. However, Professor Olsen does pace around a lot during class so his audio gets super wonky for the recordings (beware of that if you're plan…

Great class to take if you are interested in the Earth and ecology, want some special insights and are prepared to spend the time to do the work. The classroom is really nice, like a cave when the lights are down. Most of the chairs are really comfortable, and the decor is educational, with lots of Earth maps. The first section is an excellent and unique introduction to the life of the planet at first, including the solar system, and creation of the planet, following by a month of ecology and communities of life on Earth, and then a month of life systems, including photosynthesis and elements cycling. The professors are all experts and obviously like to teach and are good at it. They can make complicated concepts fairly simple and understandable. They also all have a richness of understanding to convey of their disciplines and for more detail, you can look at individual reviews I wrote for each of them. There is a lot to learn if you have no previous substantial experience of the subject, so look at the syllabus on the website first, although it does not reflect the proper class content which you get by attending, etc. All the professors have presentations, and these are made available on either the course website or Courseworks for download, except the videos and other odds and ends that belong to the professor's particular presentation. They are all available for questions,…

Prof. Griffin is another nice professional, and like the other professors, brings to the class his dedication and enthusiasm for the subject. He is also around the world working on his tree projects, and he includes some of his work in his presentations when he covers the biology of life systems. The labs are also interesting. If you have done Environmental Bio I, you should have little problem with this, but if you are new to environmental biology, you need to learn quite a bit about microscopic systems such as photosynthesis, energy cycles, and have a general idea about elements that cycle in the environment, such as carbon. Between the good text (by Raven et al.) and the hand-outs, you have everything you need to learn, and he will tell you what you need to learn, since there is a lot of detail to these systems.

I expected that I would be more concerned about learning the material. In the end, the workload and busy work was more difficult to deal with.

This class is not incredibly difficult. The content is pretty simple. However, damn is it a lot of busy work. The labs are demonic. I suppose all labs are, but these are pretty annoying.

Lecture notes, best to review and learn immediately, since to some extent, a lot of the information builds upon the other. But not very burdensome, and if you are inclined, you can even review these and the readings before the class begins since the information is available on their class website year-round. Note cards for the facts work. The big challenge for this section is getting to the museums and doing the drawings and finding out the information for the labs. It is a fascinating adventure if you want to see it that way, and can be a lot of fun, as I had. But it takes time to do properly, and effort, so be prepared for that, and maybe more than one visit, since it is tiring to go through a museum for more than a few hours at a time. Fortunately, the American Museum of Natural History is free for students. Find out how to do scientific drawings from the prof. or the TA, and find out what they want to see labelled, and you shouldn't have much problem. They are looking for scientific observations, not fine art. Some people took digital cameras with them and then filled out some of the details of their sketches later. So that cut down on time spent standing or sitting around the exhibits. Some are hard to sit by. Altogether, very demanding assignments but very rewarding also and complementary to the lectures. I think that in this instance, I don't think they are being overly…

Paul Olsen is the first of three professors, each teaching for one month. Professional is a fitting description. His presentations run like PBS documentaries. He is an excellent speaker, and he easily combines perspectives of life from paleontology, geology and the solar system, giving a unique outlook on the Life systems of Earth. So, not only does he know the material extremely well, he presents it with variety and style, and with video presentations. That is a lot of work to prepare for a class, and I really appreciated that he tried to make it real and interesting. The room used for the class is also very comfortable and cave-like, so it can be an enjoyable experience, a little like a trip through time and life. It is a really great introduction to the subject and the other professors. Some notes and a syllabus have been available on the Earth Institute's course website year round, so you can review them to see how you feel about it. However, they are no substitute for the classes, obviously. The professor is straightforward about the tasks and exams, and available for questions, so you should have no problem if you keep up with the lectures and studies. See workload for the lab situation. In the end I felt it was a very wothwhile class, and a privilege to be taught by a top scientist whose knowledge base has a maturity of years of research, and he conveys the richness of…