Summer 2026 OEAS 497: Special Problems and Research

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Course description

In this course, students will carry out independetn research projects. The projects focus on mitigation of human-induced changes in the Earth system, including but not limited to changes in the physiology of Earth's life-support system, extinction, climate change and sea level rise, and adaptation to the impacts of these changes.

Course expectations

At the end of this course, students will:

  • comprehend the scale of the current transition out of the Holocene into a new unknown geological epoch;
  • understand the challenges sustainability science and conservation management are facing today;
  • have the skills to analyze the ethical dimension of the sustainability challenge and to formulate a personal ethical position and active value system;
  • appreciate the importance of system thinking and have the skills to approach complex systems of systems with conceptual modeling;
  • be able to recognize the nexus between system characteristics (including the food-water-energy-population nexus) and how conservation is integrated into such a nexus approach;
  • apply a probabilistic approach to hazards, vulnerability and risk analyses;
  • participate in societal decision making processes;
  • poses the skills to develop conceptual models of a system under consideration and use these models to explore the spectrum of possible futures of this system;
  • understand the importance of having metrics for adaptation options and their relevance for conservation.

Requirements

Prerequistes are OEAS/BIOL/IDS 466W. Students are expected to have reached the Commonwealth of Virginia standards-of-learning in high school math, science, and writing. Regular class attendance is required as some of the information will only be provided during class.

Office Hours

Dr Plag: Wednesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 - 3:00 PM and by appointment. More information is available on Canvas and in the course workspace.

Approach

The course will combine lectures with discussions and project work. There will be weekly homeworks in written form. Each week, a set of questions will be made available and written answers will have to be provided based on the material presented in the class and additional readings. These answers have to be concise and in scientific writing style with sufficient citation of peer-reviewed sources. The answers have to include the name of the student as well as the questions themselves. The answers have to cite the sources consulted in writing the answer and a list of references. For the 500-level course, there will be additional questions. In total, there will be twelve sets of questions of which the ten best will be counted for the overall grade.

In each class, you will have to submit a (online) 2+2 Form, in which you state two points that you learned in this particular class and two points that you did not understand. These 2+2 Forms will be used as documentation that you participated in the class. The instructors will respond to points you did not understand or points you misunderstood either in class (if several students had the same issues) or individually through the Web page. Your 2+2 forms are private and not visble to other students. Examples from the 2+2 forms use din class witll be anonymous.

The research assignment will consist of a research case study using the MARI case study template and a presentation of the research paper. The research paper and presentation will be prepared during a Student Project hour and in homework. More information on the case study, including templates for the case study report and presentation, is available in the course workspace.

Note that the form of this course will differ from many other more traditional courses in that is starts with the description of a complex societal challenge and not with basic theory. The challenge of adapting to the current and future changes inflicted by humanity on the planet and the Earth's life-support system is a “wicked problem for which no comprehensive theory exists. Wicked problems have to be addressed in transdisciplinary approaches. It requires environmental, social, and economic considerations in a complex system environment. Therefore, we will approach this problem by first describing the problem in its many facets and then pulling in theory where needed to better understand the problem and to illustrate possible approaches to address the challenges.

Use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) Tools

The use of GAI tools such as Chatbot is permitted (but not recommended) for assignments if that use is declared. The full details of the policy for GAI use in this course is in the [GAI Use Policy] document accessible in the Web workspace.

Reading Material

Access to digital text and reading lists will be supplied to students at no cost. All necessary information for the course, including the reading list and assignments are posted on Canvas and/or at http://www.mari-odu.org/academics/2025f_adaptation.

Grading

The course utilizes a pass-fail grading.

Accessibility and Equal Access

Old Dominion University is committed to ensuring equal access to all qualified students with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Office of Educational Accessibility (OEA) is the campus office that works with students who have disabilities to provide and/or arrange reasonable accommodations.

  • If you experience a disability that will impact your ability to access any aspect of my class, please present me with an accommodation letter from OEA so that we can work together to ensure that appropriate accommodations are available.
  • If you feel that you will experience barriers to your ability to learn and/or test in my class but do not have an accommodation letter, please consider scheduling an appointment with OEA to determine if academic accommodations are necessary.

    The Office of Educational Accessibility is located at 1021 Student Success Center and its phone number is (757) 683-4655. Additional information is available on the OEA website.