Conservation of Living Systems

Courses

CLS offers intensive, cross-disciplinary short courses (1-day, 3-day, 6-day; 12-15 students) taught jointly by UW faculty and outside professionals. The courses are designed to immerse graduate students in an intensive learning environment led by working conservation leaders. The courses will serve the CLS program by bringing outstanding conservation practitioners from around the world to the UW campus to create a unique networking opportunities for our students and faculty. By providing students with an intensive learning environment focused on the skill-sets identified as essential by future employers, we insure that our students get the skills and the contacts needed for careers as conservation professionals.

Short Courses

1. Media Communications for Environmental Professionals
   Evidenced based policy depends on effective media communication by conservation leaders. The training, language, culture and pace that characterize news outlets are fundamentally different, and often at odds with the disciplinary training that graduate students receive. Thus, many young conservation professionals are completely unprepared for interactions with the press. As a result, they often fail to communicate effectively and forcefully. This course is designed to train future conservation leaders to be effective media communicators including hands on training in interview techniques, lectures and tips by leading environmental reporters, and case studies on media communications. The course will be team taught by Cate Goethals, from the UW Foster School of Business, and Liz Neeley, associate director of COMPASS - Communication Partnership for Science and Sea - a leading NGO founded by Jane Lubchenco and focused exclusively on science communications by scientists.
2. Conservation Law
   Effective conservation leadership requires an understanding and appreciation of the roll of law in conservation. This course will be co-taught by Michael Robinson Dorn, UW School of Law, and Melanie Rowland, Senior Attorney NOAA Northwest Region. The course will use case histories and hands on training to explore the role of law in framing environmental perceptions and influencing the history and future of US and global conservation efforts. The course is designed to serve advanced graduate students in the Natural Sciences and third year law-students. Sixteen slots will be partitioned equally across these two groups, allowing Robinson-Dorn and Rowland to foster connections between emerging leaders in both fields through hands-on exercises, case-histories, and discussion sections.
3. Environmental Economics
   Environmental leadership requires an understanding of both macro-economic and micro-economic principles, and yet few emerging leaders in conservation are exposed to this field. This course will fill that gap. Designed for graduate students in the natural sciences who know little or no economics, this course will provide the foundation for effective communications with economists and full participation in public policy discussions. The course will include such topics as individual optimization, game theory, price theory, and climate change economics. Yoram Bauman, ‘the world’s first and only stand-up economist’ will teach this course and include work from his recent Cartoon Introduction to Economics. Students should have a basic understanding of calculus.
4. Conservation Cost Benefit Analysis
   Professor Josh Lawler, College of Forest Resources has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to provide students a hands-on approach to learning how agencies and conservation NGOs select areas to protect biodiversity. This intensive course will give students the opportunity to help The Nature Conservancy (TNC) redesign its conservation portfolio for the state of Washington using current data sets on biodiversity and different types of acquisition costs. The course will address a real conservation research need and produce products that will be directly used by the Nature Conservancy to protect Washington’s biodiversity. The course will include field trips, visits to the TNC offices, and a 4-5 day trip to a research station.

In Development for 2010-11

Playing in the Sandbox: Mediation, Negotiation, Facilitation

A major challenge for new conservation professionals is learning to work in multi-disciplinary teams. This course will train students to negotiate agreements among stakeholders with diverse and conflicting agendas. We are currently working with Steve Forman, Director of Forman Consulting, to create this course, in collaboration with the Evans School of public Policy.