I genuinely loved this class and Professor Robinson. I took this class first as a GE but really liked it and decided I'll be majoring in Geog. As a GE, I thinkit's a very easy way to fulfill the lab requirement. The lectures were pre-recorded and asynchronous, meaning you could watch the lectures whenever you wanted to, and could go back and rewatch for studying purposes.
The class was broken up into weekly asynchronous lecture, weekly discussion, weekly labs, a midterm, a final, and a species report (final paper). The discussion is blocked out for two hours but usually took no less than 50 minutes, and the labs were really easy to navigate (the data was already given to us due to covid). Labs were due Sunday at 6 pm and most days I would start Sunday at like 3 and got by just fine. Professor Robinson gave a study guide for both the midterm and final, and all the exam content was taken directly from the lecture material. If you just review lecture material enough, you'll do fine.
The species report was released to us Week 4 and was due Week 10, plenty of time to work on it. I started halfway through Week 9 and got an A+ on it, so it really depends on how fast you can work.
There was a "required" textbook for the course and I found it online for free, but it was never actually used. I read it the first week and never read it again and got through the class just fine since the exams were based solely on lecture material.

This class is one of the best science classes to take to satisfy a GE!! The class was asynchronous, but it brought many benefits like prerecorded lectures that I was able to go back to rewatch when studying for the exams. We had one lab assignment per week and they are pretty straightforward. We got plenty of time to complete them and the species report. The topics are really interesting and not difficult to understand and the study guide is really helpful for the midterm and final exams. The professor does a great job teaching this class!!

Dr. Robinson was a great professor and lecturer. I felt she was able to teach the required materials in an organized and timely fashion. I appreciated her emails which provided details about the class and tests. She was kind to her students and welcomed us to reach out to her with any questions. Her tests were made well and were direct reflections of the lecture material, and I appreciated her study guides which gave a direct way to study for the test. I took this class during the first quarter online due to COVID-19, so grading was easier, but overall Dr. Robinson took into consideration the needs of her students and adapted the class as such.

I honestly loved this class. I’m an ecology student but took it to fulfill the lower div requirement for my minor, and I very much enjoyed it. Professor Robinson gave great lectures that were also recorded online, but I’m not sure if they will be when classes are in person again. She is a great lecturer and explained concepts very well; additionally, the slides are posted if you just want to take notes off of there instead.

A breakdown of the grading scheme.
-Labs: The class has a lab section, and most weeks we would do an activity (though it was often compromised due to classes being online, resulting in a lot of data being handed to us instead of collecting it ourselves), although there were a few weeks where we didn’t have one. We had a week to complete the activity, and participation was mandatory and counted toward our grade in lab sections. The activities were graded generously, and I got a perfect score on all of them without trying too much.
-Tests: Tests were a combination of multiple choice and short answer. Lockdown browser was required. If you took notes on the lectures you will be fine. I did well without studying too much, and the tests as a whole felt very fair. There was one midterm and a final, which were most of your grade.
-Report: We has a ~5 page report worth 25% of our grade that involved discussing the biogeography of a single species. We were assigned it during week 4 and had until the end of week 10 to complete it (I.e. we had a TON of time). The rubric was clear, and I feel as though it was graded generously if you obviously put a good amount of effort into it. This is a good way to boost your grade if you don’t do well on the tests.

Overall, I loved the class and professor. Tests were easy, content was well explained and taught, and you have plenty of time to get things done. Since attendance for lectures isn’t required (and they are recorded anyway), and you have 6 weeks to do your report, you have tons of flexibility to not work on this class for a while if you need to prioritize other things. Would definitely recommend with Professor Robinson if this class fulfills a credit you need.

Professor was super kind and funny! I really love their teaching style, always engaging lectures!! I look forward to taking another class of theirs this fall 2020! :)

Professor Robinson is someone who knows what she teaches in class (the absolute boss!). It is an easy subject but the content was a lot (lots of new terms and concepts of biogeography). I enjoyed the lectures but it would have been better if she were to reduce the content of the syllabus for this class. Labs were a piece of cake and exams were generally easy. 99.9% recommended (0.01% due to the huge syllabus content).

This was one of the best classes I've taken at UCLA! First and foremost, just to get it out there, the textbook is NOT needed. Professor Robinson clearly demonstrates her expertise in this field while keeping it very engaging and interesting. Every Sunday, two recorded lectures are released, and they're generally about an hour each. These lectures are incredibly informative, plus she uploads the slides for you to download. Dr. Robinson also provides a study guide for the Midterm and Final exam. I recommend doing them, as they are very helpful. It takes me about a whole day to finish it.
Discussion sections are very straightforward. The TA usually presents a slide introducing what the weekly lab is about to prepare you for it. Once that's out of the way, you are free to go or stay in the call to ask any questions. My TA (Ruth) was excellent. Few times I had to email her, and she was always quick to respond.

The weekly labs are due every Friday. It used to be at 6 pm, but it later changed to 11:59 pm for us. It takes me 2-4 hours on average to complete them; they're not too hard. I recommend starting on it at least a day before if you run into a problem and have to ask questions. The species report was not too difficult, 4-5 pages excluding figures and graphs, with 6 pages the maximum. The rubric literally tells you the outline and what you need to write. In addition, you have to cite at least two scholarly journals via UCLA VPN. Again, as other reviews stated, it was not too difficult, but it is time-consuming, so the moral of the story is to start on it ASAP, not when it's due in the next 2 days. The only thing I wish is if this class were in PERSON! Thank you, Professor Robinson, you ROCK!

This class was relatively interesting and easy with asynchronous lectures. The midterm and final were very memorization-based and easy. The labs also were very quick and graded very leniently and there was a short and easy species report final. Do the study guide though as that is really important to do well on the midterm and final! Overall would recommend this class to anyone for an easy science lab GE

Would definitely recommend this class as an easy GE. Biodiversity is not a topic that is super interesting, but the content is straightforward and Prof. Robinson is super engaging. She does a great job of explaining the content and is super passionate about her work.

The work overall was light. Lectures were asynchronous and two lectures were posted each week, about 1 hour each. Besides the lab, there is no other work and buying/reading the textbook is NOT needed. Everything you need to know comes directly from her lectures. Each lab was assigned during the lab section and due every Sunday. The lab assignments were fairly simple and didn't take long to complete, but TAs were readily available if you have any questions.

The midterm and final were very easy if you know the material. Make sure you fill out and study the study guide, because pretty much all the questions were taken from the study guide.

If you need an easy GE, this is the one. It's asynchronous (although of course these things might change when the pandemic is over), lectures are recorded, and there are no group projects. There's a textbook, but the professor told us herself to focus on the lectures since they follow the book but focus on what's important for the tests. After I learned this, I didn't even read the textbook. The tests are mostly multiple choice (the midterm had some frq). But she gives us a study guide for both tests and the tests follow the study guides very closely. Just collaborate with people in the class to finish/answer the stuidy guides (it's lengthy) and you'll be fine for the tests.

As for the labs, their easy. Especially because this class is remote, we didn't collect any data or perform any experiments. So all the data was given to us which made doing the labs very quick. Lab sections will have like one hour of lecture and one hour of working on the labs. So basically if you have questions you can just ask the TA right there, and sometimes they'll just give you the answer. You can just finish the lab right there during lab section with confidence that you got most of the questions right (and they're not even that hard to do anyway). Although, the TAs will write their explanations on the slides and lab documents differently so some are more clear than others. I had Ben and his slides and instructions were always very clear and straight to the point.

As for the research report, it's not too hard. They give you all the topics you need to research and they teach you how to find articles on google scholar etc. and how to use and download the UCLA vpn.

Basically, don't worry about this class at all.