Students will examine in detail a variety of environmental problems, using the skills they gained in their first year of MES core studies to carry out individual or small group projects. Students and faculty will also work together to apply what has been learned throughout the core sequence about interdisciplinary environmental research to design individual thesis research plans that will be ready to carry out by the end of the fall quarter of the student's second year.

2013 Syllabus

Faculty Biographies

Carri LeRoy, Ph.D., is a stream ecologist who is fascinated by interactions between forests and streams, and has studied riparian systems in Washington, Arizona, and Utah for the past 10 years. She is also Co-Director of the Sustainability in Prisons Project at Evergreen. Dr. LeRoy has published over 25 scientific research articles with students and collaborators in the fields of stream ecology, ecological genetics, riparian forest ecology and prairie plant community dynamics. As an MES faculty, she gets to teach about the ecology of the Pacific Northwest as well as the applications and theory of statistics and quantitative methods. Her interests in non-formal education are based in her experience with environmental and place-based education, her work with incarcerated students and her desire to facilitate environmental stewardship in broad audiences. Other topics she is interested in include: invertebrate community ecology, trophic dynamics in lake ecosystems, long-term monitoring of ecosystem function, and issues of aesthetics in science.

Ted Whitesell, Ph.D., is a broadly trained cultural geographer with special interests in political ecology and conservation.  As a freshman at the University of Colorado, Ted co-founded the CU Wilderness Study Group. After graduation, Ted ran the Colorado Wilderness Workshop, the only statewide preservation organization at the time. From 1975 to 1985, he was a leader of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, campaigning to secure designation of the first wilderness areas in the Tongass National Forest. He was recognized as the most accomplished environmental leader in the country of 25 years of age or less by the Tyler Foundation.  Later, he earned a Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley, investigating grassroots proposals for conservation and development in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. Ted came to The Evergreen State College in 1998 and is affiliated with two planning units – Environmental Studies and Sustainability & Justice.  His students published a major book in April 2004, called Defending Wild Washington (The Mountaineers Books). His most recent research was a collaborative investigation of tribal perspectives on marine protected areas in western Washington.