All Courses List

This course investigates alternatives to capitalist corporations that are characterized by some degree of mutuality, such as co-operatives and worker-owned firms. Key issues examined include the competitiveness of alternatives and their desirability on other grounds, including contributions to local economic development.

Course credit exclusions: None.

PRIOR TO FALL 2009: Course credit exclusion: AS/SOSC 4041 6.00.

This seminar explores complementary scholarship on 'first world' political ecology and the commodification of nature in order to critically explore issues of environmental management and resource conflict. It will draw on case studies about rural and urban North American environments. Prerequisites: 72 credits successfully completed including AP/GEOG 3050 3.00 or permission of the course director.

Course credit exclusions: None. PRIOR TO FALL 2009: Prerequisites: 54 credits successfully completed including AS/GEOG 3050 3.00 or permission of the course director. Course credit exclusion: AS/GEOG 4050 3.00.

This course deals with urban environments outside the centre of the city. It develops an understanding of the characteristics and needs of planning for small and medium size towns, suburbs, exurbs and peripheries. Recognizing this diversity of urban form and life, the course, which contains site visits, presents approaches to planning and placemaking challenges typical for non-central communities.

"This course considers the historical construction of Aboriginal space in Canada and the US and its relationship to cities, from early colonization to the present. Prerequisite: 72 credits successfully completed. Course credit exclusions: None. PRIOR TO FALL 2009: Course credit exclusion: AS/GEOG 4095 3.00.

Explores the role of biological science in efforts to conserve natural resources, systems and the organisms therein. Prerequisites: SC/BIOL 2050 4.00, SC/BIOL 2060 3.00.

We do not know the number of species on Earth, even to the nearest order of magnitude. This course discusses the factors that influence the number of species in an area and the importance of biodiversity to humanity. Note: Completion of 60 credits required, towards a degree in biology or environmental science or environmental studies, or permission of the Instructor.

From garden suburbs to post-war inner- and outer-suburbs, from New Urbanist communities to edge cities, technoburbs, and exurbs, this course critically considers the planning of suburban built form and the suburbanization process in historical perspective. Consideration is given to the mechanisms and the challenges of managing suburban growth, and to the complex socio-cultural geographies and values that shape the suburbs and the suburban way of life. Attention is directed to issues of gender, racialized poverty, unemployment, infrastructural inadequacy, sprawl, and sustainability, and an effort is made to envision alternative futures. Course credit exclusions: None. PRIOR TO FALL 2009: Course credit exclusion: AK/GEOG 4130 6.00.

An introduction to diverse ways of seeing and understanding nature. An historical perspective on the development of environmental thought leads to an exploration of various perspectives and critiques of the standard scientific and technological approaches to understanding nature, as offered by alternative schools of thought such as humanists, deep ecologists and ecofeminists. Prerequisite: Fourth-year standing or by permission of the Instructor. Students with Third-year standing may have access subject to space availability and approval from the Faculty.

The course explores the landscapes and scales of food and agriculture. Questions include: Can we change ourselves and the world through what we eat? Why do we still have world hunger? Who really controls how food is produced and consumed? Emphasis is given to food and agricultural geographies in the global south. Prerequisites: 84 credits completed.

This course first discusses a number of conceptual issues concerning the residential segregation of ethnic and racial groups. The course then considers several case examples that exemplify the varied experiences of ethnic and racial groups in modern cities.Prerequisites: 84 credits successfully completed, including AP/GEOG 1000 6.00 or AP/GEOG 1410 6.00 or written permission of the Instructor. Third-year Honours students with 78 credits completed who are also taking summer courses may enrol.

The course focuses on selected aspects of river water quality, including hillslope hydrology and the transport of pollutants, the impacts of human activities on water chemistry, nutrient transformations within stream ecosystems, and the effects of water quality on stream biological communities.Prerequisite: AP/GEOG 1400 6.00 or SC/GEOG 1400 6.00, ES/ENVS 2410 3.00, or SC/BIOL 2050 4.00.

A study of the processes of energy and moisture exchanges in polar regions with emphasis on the Canadian north. Topics include atmospheric and oceanic transport of energy, surface microclimate and the sensitivity of high latitude environments to climate change. Normally offered in alternate years.Prerequisites: 54 credits successfully completed, including AP/GEOG 2400 6.00 or SC/GEOG 2400 6.00 or written permission of the Instructor.

A study of the relationship between the atmosphere and the hydrosphere with the emphasis on the process of evaporation. The course includes an in-depth review of evaporation models and the instrumentation necessary for data acquisition. Normally offered in alternate years.

Prerequisite: AP/GEOG 2400 6.00 or SC/GEOG 2400 6.00.

The field of Ecological Climatology provides an interdisciplinary framework for understanding how terrestrial ecosystems function in relation to climate systems. It examines the physical, chemical and biological processes by which landscapes affect and are affected by climate. The central theme is that ecosystems, through their cycling of energy, water, chemical elements and trace gases are important determinants of climate. The coupling between climate and vegetation is seen at spatial scales from the leaf to biomes and at timescales from seconds to millenia. Both natural vegetation dynamics and human induced land-use changes are mechanisms of climate change. The course combines a theoretical understanding of ecological climatology with applied experimentation to reinforce the principals involved. Prerequisite: AP/SC GEOG 2400 6.00; and either AP/GEOG 2500 3.00 or SC/GEOG 2500 3.00 or SC/BIOL 2050 4.00; and either AP/GEOG 2420 3.00 or SC GEOG 2420 3.00 or SC/BIOL 2060 3.00. Graduate student prerequisites: With permission of the Instructor.

This course examines neoliberalism as a geographical process - or 'neoliberalization' - through an examination of key transformations since the 1970s in the Global North and Global South. It focuses on the implications of neoliberalization for international, national, and regional political economies; political institutions, territories, and power dynamics; labour, work, and migration patterns and practices; and visions and discourses of societal progress.

This course presents a systematic hands-on approach to urban planning and consulting practice. This includes experiential learning in institutional planning, social activism and community consultation in a variety of relevant settings in Toronto and region. Consulting as a professional practice, organizing, negotiation and activism will be presented on a register of skill development useful for future urban planners and professionals.