EE BIOL 116
Conservation Biology
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Requisite: Life Sciences 1 or 7B. Recommended: course 100. Not open for credit to students with credit for Environment 121. Study of ecological and evolutionary principles as they apply to preservation of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. Discussion sections focus on interactions of science, policy, and economics in conserving biodiversity. Oral and written student presentation on specific conservation issues. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - To preface, I took this class online so it might have been a lot easier than it usually is. Professor Brown is one of my favorite Professors I've had at UCLA and I highly recommend taking a class with her any chance that you can. Her lectures were dense but super interesting and she loves what she does so it is super fun listening to her. Recommendations: For her tests she takes exactly what she puts on her slides or says in class. She gives you learning objectives at the beginning of each lecture that are reflected on the midterm and that is all you need to study. If you take good notes during class you can fill out the learning objectives with little no effort whatsoever and then you're all set for the tests. She has three tests all weighted equally: midterm 1, midterm 2, midterm 3 (which is the the final). The first midterm was medium difficulty, the second midterm was supposed to be harder but I did better than I did on the first, and the last midterm/final is the easiest test which is supposed to boost your grade. PS the TAs are great for this class and are super helpful answering study questions.
Spring 2020 - To preface, I took this class online so it might have been a lot easier than it usually is. Professor Brown is one of my favorite Professors I've had at UCLA and I highly recommend taking a class with her any chance that you can. Her lectures were dense but super interesting and she loves what she does so it is super fun listening to her. Recommendations: For her tests she takes exactly what she puts on her slides or says in class. She gives you learning objectives at the beginning of each lecture that are reflected on the midterm and that is all you need to study. If you take good notes during class you can fill out the learning objectives with little no effort whatsoever and then you're all set for the tests. She has three tests all weighted equally: midterm 1, midterm 2, midterm 3 (which is the the final). The first midterm was medium difficulty, the second midterm was supposed to be harder but I did better than I did on the first, and the last midterm/final is the easiest test which is supposed to boost your grade. PS the TAs are great for this class and are super helpful answering study questions.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2015 - I definitely recommend taking Conservation Biology with Dr. Gorlitsky in the summer! She's a young professor so I'm not surprised there aren't any reviews on her yet, but she also teaches EEB 151A and EEB 100. I'll start off by saying she is an amazing professor! Her lecture slides give the perfect amount of detail; they basically summarize everything you need to know, and she will tell you ahead of time exactly what you will be tested on for the midterm and final. Her teaching method tends to be fast-paced, making her lectures more engaging. As long as you pay attention and study your notes, it is definitely possible to get an A or a B. Dr. Gorlitsky has a way of inspiring students to make a difference in the world, and you can tell she truly cares about the well-being of our environment. Overall, she's a chill, kind, and down-to-earth person who will hopefully leave a positive impact with you like she did with me :)
Summer 2015 - I definitely recommend taking Conservation Biology with Dr. Gorlitsky in the summer! She's a young professor so I'm not surprised there aren't any reviews on her yet, but she also teaches EEB 151A and EEB 100. I'll start off by saying she is an amazing professor! Her lecture slides give the perfect amount of detail; they basically summarize everything you need to know, and she will tell you ahead of time exactly what you will be tested on for the midterm and final. Her teaching method tends to be fast-paced, making her lectures more engaging. As long as you pay attention and study your notes, it is definitely possible to get an A or a B. Dr. Gorlitsky has a way of inspiring students to make a difference in the world, and you can tell she truly cares about the well-being of our environment. Overall, she's a chill, kind, and down-to-earth person who will hopefully leave a positive impact with you like she did with me :)
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - This was a genuinely great course. I was never bored with any of the material, and actually looked forward to coming to class. The professor was super clear with what she was going to test on, as I feel she learned from previous students feedback. If you went to class she would tell you what topics of questions she would test on, saying "I always put this type of question on the test". Lipman also seemed like a genuine person who cared about her students. Gina was also an AMAZING TA. Super well informed and kind. Take this class, it will honestly change the way you see the world!
Fall 2019 - This was a genuinely great course. I was never bored with any of the material, and actually looked forward to coming to class. The professor was super clear with what she was going to test on, as I feel she learned from previous students feedback. If you went to class she would tell you what topics of questions she would test on, saying "I always put this type of question on the test". Lipman also seemed like a genuine person who cared about her students. Gina was also an AMAZING TA. Super well informed and kind. Take this class, it will honestly change the way you see the world!
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - Professor Rundel did not have a beneficial set up for this class. He spoke extremely quickly during his lectures not allowing you to grasp much during class. During the discussion sections, 2 students would have do a 15 minute presentation on a topic which made no sense because questions regarding lecture material are meant to be asked in discussions but the presentations would be on random articles that would not be tested on and time for questions regarding material that was actually going to be tested on was not available. His test reviews helped with tests but the exams were extremely long and even my TA agreed with them being way too long. The grading on the exams was awful since they would expect you to give an in depth precise answer which was difficult with the amount of time given and most the time if a certain word(s) in your paragraph long answer were not used a majority of the points would be reduced. Interesting topic but awful set up and teaching methods for the class
Winter 2017 - Professor Rundel did not have a beneficial set up for this class. He spoke extremely quickly during his lectures not allowing you to grasp much during class. During the discussion sections, 2 students would have do a 15 minute presentation on a topic which made no sense because questions regarding lecture material are meant to be asked in discussions but the presentations would be on random articles that would not be tested on and time for questions regarding material that was actually going to be tested on was not available. His test reviews helped with tests but the exams were extremely long and even my TA agreed with them being way too long. The grading on the exams was awful since they would expect you to give an in depth precise answer which was difficult with the amount of time given and most the time if a certain word(s) in your paragraph long answer were not used a majority of the points would be reduced. Interesting topic but awful set up and teaching methods for the class
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - Overall this class was pretty decent. Professor Schindlinger is a nice man at heart, and really does try to interact with the people who do go to lecture. However, his lectures were very hard to watch as he talks kind of slow, reads from the slides, and has a lot of pauses. For this reason I think a lot of the students (including myself) did not go to lecture and chose to watch them after the fact where you could speed up his talking a little bit. The TA Evan was pretty cool and would try to make discussion sections worthwhile. I do feel a little bad for Evan because nobody turned their camera on and only a few people would talk, but he still had good interaction with some of the students. The class had 3 midterms that were in the form of essay questions (we had to select 4 questions from a list and answer them in up to 400 words) woth 100 points each and 150 points for discussion which came from reading articles that Evan assigned and writing 4 questions about them to discuss in class. Evan and the professor were really lenient graders on the midterms and discussion assignments, so as long as you kept up with lectures you were pretty solid. The midterms did require you to know quite a bit from the assigned readings in the textbook and from some of the articles we would read for discussion, so I would recommend staying on top of those to succeed in the class.
Spring 2021 - Overall this class was pretty decent. Professor Schindlinger is a nice man at heart, and really does try to interact with the people who do go to lecture. However, his lectures were very hard to watch as he talks kind of slow, reads from the slides, and has a lot of pauses. For this reason I think a lot of the students (including myself) did not go to lecture and chose to watch them after the fact where you could speed up his talking a little bit. The TA Evan was pretty cool and would try to make discussion sections worthwhile. I do feel a little bad for Evan because nobody turned their camera on and only a few people would talk, but he still had good interaction with some of the students. The class had 3 midterms that were in the form of essay questions (we had to select 4 questions from a list and answer them in up to 400 words) woth 100 points each and 150 points for discussion which came from reading articles that Evan assigned and writing 4 questions about them to discuss in class. Evan and the professor were really lenient graders on the midterms and discussion assignments, so as long as you kept up with lectures you were pretty solid. The midterms did require you to know quite a bit from the assigned readings in the textbook and from some of the articles we would read for discussion, so I would recommend staying on top of those to succeed in the class.
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Wayne is a really nice guy, and he's a very good lecturer. But he teaches this class expecting his students to know how to do LS4 work, such as calculate heritability and loss of heterozygosity. This isn't a requirement for the class, and I have never taken LS4 before, so on the second midterm when he asked us to bring calculators to class and expected us to know how to do these calculations, I was completely lost. He does curve the class which is nice. The reading he assigns us is very long and a lot of fluff with not a lot of content. Lastly, we have weekly quizzes on articles that are read in discussion. They say that they won't ask questions that are extremely detailed, but THEY DO! This class is not at all what I thought a conservation biology class was going to be about. It took me by surprise for sure.
Professor Wayne is a really nice guy, and he's a very good lecturer. But he teaches this class expecting his students to know how to do LS4 work, such as calculate heritability and loss of heterozygosity. This isn't a requirement for the class, and I have never taken LS4 before, so on the second midterm when he asked us to bring calculators to class and expected us to know how to do these calculations, I was completely lost. He does curve the class which is nice. The reading he assigns us is very long and a lot of fluff with not a lot of content. Lastly, we have weekly quizzes on articles that are read in discussion. They say that they won't ask questions that are extremely detailed, but THEY DO! This class is not at all what I thought a conservation biology class was going to be about. It took me by surprise for sure.
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