Learning By Doing

I very much believe in an active, student-focused approach to teaching. I embed my students within basic and applied field research projects wherever feasible, almost always within an overarching Service Learning framework.
Students leave my courses well prepared to take on the many challenges facing our people and planet.
Representative examples of some of my courses are below.

Dr. A’s “Core” Courses

I created or heavily revised each of these courses and am their primary instructor.

Campus-Based

ESRM 370 (Drones)Sp

ESRM 370: Introduction to Remotely Piloted Systems explores the basics of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) from a range of perspectives including aero-/hydrodynamics, data collection, legal, cultural, basic programming, and public safety. Students learn control systems, various vehicle designs, and routine equipment maintenance.

ESRM 462 (Coastal)F

ESRM 462: Coastal and Marine Resource Management introduces students to the fundamental concepts of coastal and marine management as well as physical and biological oceanography, environmental threats across various temporal and spatial scales, and various policies and programs of Coastal Zone Management (CZM).

Capstone SeriesF & Sp

ESRM 491: Capstone Prep & ESRM 499: Capstone students spend an entire academic year developing, revising, and executing an independent research project. Various faculty or external collaborators may assist with elements of their projects, but each student is responsible for managing all aspects of their scholarship and seeing it through to completion by May of each year. Their work is independently evaluated by external reviewers.

Field-Based

ESRM 492 (New Orleans)Sp

ESRM 492: Service Learning in New Orleans students participate in a semester long course which has as its core a two-week experience across New Orleans and southern Louisiana examining the management drivers that led to the man-made disasters that we know as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. We divide our time between meetings with scientific, cultural, and political experts and our long-term efforts to restore wetlands and expand food gardens across the region.

UNIV 391 (Hawai'i)F

UNIV 391: Hawaiian Coastal Management students augment their California-based curriculum with an intensive trip across the Big Island of Hawaii and Oahu exploring unique approaches to managing our coast which contrast with our California experience.

UNIV 392 (Cooks)Summer

UNIV 492: Service Learning in the Cook Islands students travel to the South Pacific island nation of the Cook Islands for an intensive, two-week long exploration of the people and ecosystems of the island of Aitutaki for local tribal and national governments. Students characterize the subtidal, littoral, terrestrial, and cultural systems on this rapidly depopulating small island nation via in-person interviews, field surveys, and mapping via aerial (drones) and aquatic (ROVs) robots.

Additional Courses

I created or heavily revised each of these courses, but have since either handed them off to colleagues or teach them in alternating years.

Broadly Focused

ESRM 205 (Sustainability)Fall

ESRM 205: Principles of Sustainability students analyze the fundamental principles, methods, and procedures of sustainability science. Topics span the history of the sustainability movement, the underlying causes for the depletion of natural resources, and current thinking on the need to consider environmental sustainability in organizational strategic planning.

ESRM 301 (Field Prof)F & Sp

ESRM 301: Field Professionalism students are trained in basic field skills including campaign, routine and emergency communication, wilderness first aid, boating safety, etc.

ESRM 351 (Field Methods)varies

ESRM 351: Field Method for Monitoring and Assessment student survey and demonstrate a wide range of field assessment methods useful for a variety of environmental characterization efforts. these include as range of transect, time constraint, trapping, and continuous sampling methodologies. This course emphasizes practical skills development with students collecting field data and conducting subsequent analyses and assessment.

Narrowly Focused

ESRM 313 (ConsBio)F & Sp

ESRM/BIO 313: Conservation Biology students explore the conservation of biodiversity. Topics covered include: species-, population-, and ecosystem-level issues, measuring biodiversity, quantifying extinction probabilities, conceptualizing sustained yield, Non-native Invasive Species, and reserve design. Management implications of particular decision and the importance of natural history are integrated throughout the course.

ESRM 350 (Rest'n Design)Sp

ESRM 350: Ecological Restoration Design and Construction students are introduced to environmental engineering. Students partake in the planning and construction of ecological restoration projects in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and/or Los Angeles Counties. Particular projects expose students to construction procedures and techniques central to the restoration of riparian, wetland, and scrubland communities.

ESRM 352 (Rest'n Theory)F

ESRM 352: Theory and Practice of Ecological Restoration students explore the theory and practice of modern ecological restoration, highlighting conceptual similarities in approaches to wetland, riparian, forest, grassland, and subtidal restorations. Special attention is given to failed restoration efforts, articulating the conditions leading to such failures, and minimum performance standards for successful projects.

Main Courses

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Chicken Katsu$15

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Unatama Don$18

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Saba Shioyaki$23

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Tonkatsu$35

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