GEOG 2
Biodiversity in a Changing World
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Biogeographic exploration of plant and animal diversity and conservation issues on continents and islands around world. Study of physical, biotic, and human factors responsible for evolution, persistence, and extinction of species and ecological communities. Analysis of effects of human activity. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - If your're looking for an easy Lab GE, take GEOG 5, it's a better experience (with less work). I took GEOG 2 online and never interacted with the professor, she does record audio for the power points though. The labs are in person with a TA. The lectures were a little cluttered and the exams were very fact-based (at times they felt like trivia). The textbook is not essential - I skimmed even though I didn't really need to. I did well and enjoyed this class mainly because I love biogeography -- it's kind of my thing. Breakdown: Lab -30% Discussion posts - 10% Barrier Quizzes (you take them till you get 100%) - 10% Midterm -25% Final (not cumulative) - 25%
Spring 2019 - If your're looking for an easy Lab GE, take GEOG 5, it's a better experience (with less work). I took GEOG 2 online and never interacted with the professor, she does record audio for the power points though. The labs are in person with a TA. The lectures were a little cluttered and the exams were very fact-based (at times they felt like trivia). The textbook is not essential - I skimmed even though I didn't really need to. I did well and enjoyed this class mainly because I love biogeography -- it's kind of my thing. Breakdown: Lab -30% Discussion posts - 10% Barrier Quizzes (you take them till you get 100%) - 10% Midterm -25% Final (not cumulative) - 25%
Most Helpful Review
wow... do take a class with him, go to his office hours, talk to him and get to know him, he is THE most awesome prof you'll ever get to know here. totally cool, really great sense of humor, wonderful and very relevant stories relate to lecture and readings, love the exclamation marks!! loved the sloths and the coati and the porcupine and the fennic fox! i would probably never have had the chance to see them up close and personal like that if it weren't for his class. WOW! take as many of his classes as you can, easy reading, good lectures, covers everything you need to know, really flexible with students and totally accessible and easy to talk to, lab's a breeze, if you're in love with Hawaii and the tropics and every cool place on the planet this is the class & prof for you! like he says, as long as you go to lecture and you don't have a nasty heroine addiction there's NO way you can't get an A in his class. ccccccoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllll!!!
wow... do take a class with him, go to his office hours, talk to him and get to know him, he is THE most awesome prof you'll ever get to know here. totally cool, really great sense of humor, wonderful and very relevant stories relate to lecture and readings, love the exclamation marks!! loved the sloths and the coati and the porcupine and the fennic fox! i would probably never have had the chance to see them up close and personal like that if it weren't for his class. WOW! take as many of his classes as you can, easy reading, good lectures, covers everything you need to know, really flexible with students and totally accessible and easy to talk to, lab's a breeze, if you're in love with Hawaii and the tropics and every cool place on the planet this is the class & prof for you! like he says, as long as you go to lecture and you don't have a nasty heroine addiction there's NO way you can't get an A in his class. ccccccoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllll!!!
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Fall 2024 - Dr. Illes is a great lecturer and she is good at it, but she might be the toughest teacher I have ever met. Do not take this course if you want to have a nice GPA. The class is not easy and I personally regret taking it. For this class, there will be several labs and lab works related to that, one conservation module each week, one midterm of multiple choice and blank filling, and a similar final. •Some pros of the class: you really get to know animal preservation and biodiversity, and geology in general. The lectures are clear and easy to follow, although the topics are quite broad. •Some cons of the class: No recording for lecture; no microphone (although tons of people at the back could not hear her very well); no curving (although mean score was low); no study list for exams (which she promised to give us one); no make-up exams; no words and main points on PPT; no late submission for assignments for any reason; no textbook The professor does not take attendance for lectures, but it is important to go to them because the only way to catch up is relying on others' notes. She also assume that students get sick only because of contagious diseases but not being aware of other physical and mental wellnesses, and she does not let student to catch up during office hour for getting sick because that is not her problem. The conservation modules that we need to study are meaningless and get more and more confusing. The professor assign this module and expect us to be experts, but what really matters is the questions at the end of every module that might appear on the exam. The labs are kind of fun but I don't get why we need to do these tbh. The exam was disastrous, because every session has their own sets of questions (because she got comments about how unreasonable the tests were from past students and now she lets TAs to make the questions), which means different degree of difficulties for each sections and different point distribution; pretty unfair. Plus, the lecture covered A LOT of details and those were on the exam. You need to memorize everything on the lecture basically. No study list makes it even harder. There is also a story map that we need to make, which I get the intent behind is to raise awareness for endangered species, but the structure of the how project does not make sense. We need to make a very specific and detailed research outline, but the presentation of the story map should not be more than 3 minutes, but also not less than 2:50 min otherwise you will not have any credit, which is again, unreasonable. I don't understand why other comments say that the class is easy. This class isn't hard, but it is definitely not easy. Comparing to other GEs I have taken, this is the worst one. Generally it is not very friendly to students.
Fall 2024 - Dr. Illes is a great lecturer and she is good at it, but she might be the toughest teacher I have ever met. Do not take this course if you want to have a nice GPA. The class is not easy and I personally regret taking it. For this class, there will be several labs and lab works related to that, one conservation module each week, one midterm of multiple choice and blank filling, and a similar final. •Some pros of the class: you really get to know animal preservation and biodiversity, and geology in general. The lectures are clear and easy to follow, although the topics are quite broad. •Some cons of the class: No recording for lecture; no microphone (although tons of people at the back could not hear her very well); no curving (although mean score was low); no study list for exams (which she promised to give us one); no make-up exams; no words and main points on PPT; no late submission for assignments for any reason; no textbook The professor does not take attendance for lectures, but it is important to go to them because the only way to catch up is relying on others' notes. She also assume that students get sick only because of contagious diseases but not being aware of other physical and mental wellnesses, and she does not let student to catch up during office hour for getting sick because that is not her problem. The conservation modules that we need to study are meaningless and get more and more confusing. The professor assign this module and expect us to be experts, but what really matters is the questions at the end of every module that might appear on the exam. The labs are kind of fun but I don't get why we need to do these tbh. The exam was disastrous, because every session has their own sets of questions (because she got comments about how unreasonable the tests were from past students and now she lets TAs to make the questions), which means different degree of difficulties for each sections and different point distribution; pretty unfair. Plus, the lecture covered A LOT of details and those were on the exam. You need to memorize everything on the lecture basically. No study list makes it even harder. There is also a story map that we need to make, which I get the intent behind is to raise awareness for endangered species, but the structure of the how project does not make sense. We need to make a very specific and detailed research outline, but the presentation of the story map should not be more than 3 minutes, but also not less than 2:50 min otherwise you will not have any credit, which is again, unreasonable. I don't understand why other comments say that the class is easy. This class isn't hard, but it is definitely not easy. Comparing to other GEs I have taken, this is the worst one. Generally it is not very friendly to students.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2015 - SELLING: Biogeography: Time, Space and Life, which you need for this class. Text me at ********** for more details! Book is in brand new condition. Overall this class isn't exactly easy, as you do need to know your stuff for the midterm and final. The information he tests you on is based on the a) his class slides and b) his book, so you need to have a very STRONG understanding for both of these. He will test you on details; he particularly likes asking you to label and fill out his graphs. Prof McDonald is a very nice and charismatic professor, and after one lecture you can immediately tell how passionate he is about the subject. Ask any question related/ not related to what he's discussing, and he'll be glad to answer it in great detail. He uploads his slides so don't worry about not catching something; but he doesn't go to fast so it should be okay. Labs take up 40% of your grade, so make sure you put effort into them! Consult your TA as they would most probably guide you in how to answer the questions. Also there's a report in which you write about any plant/animal, which shouldn't be too hard if you have enough resources i.e. use books and websites so it's kind of a freebie. Overall I wouldn't say this is an easy class, as I didn't do too well for the midterm and freaked out, so I studied really hard for the final, and got an A- in the end.
Fall 2015 - SELLING: Biogeography: Time, Space and Life, which you need for this class. Text me at ********** for more details! Book is in brand new condition. Overall this class isn't exactly easy, as you do need to know your stuff for the midterm and final. The information he tests you on is based on the a) his class slides and b) his book, so you need to have a very STRONG understanding for both of these. He will test you on details; he particularly likes asking you to label and fill out his graphs. Prof McDonald is a very nice and charismatic professor, and after one lecture you can immediately tell how passionate he is about the subject. Ask any question related/ not related to what he's discussing, and he'll be glad to answer it in great detail. He uploads his slides so don't worry about not catching something; but he doesn't go to fast so it should be okay. Labs take up 40% of your grade, so make sure you put effort into them! Consult your TA as they would most probably guide you in how to answer the questions. Also there's a report in which you write about any plant/animal, which shouldn't be too hard if you have enough resources i.e. use books and websites so it's kind of a freebie. Overall I wouldn't say this is an easy class, as I didn't do too well for the midterm and freaked out, so I studied really hard for the final, and got an A- in the end.
Most Helpful Review
DONT TAKE THIS CLASS. dont take it if youre a geography major, dont take it for a GE, dont take it because it sounds interesting. the prof. is a NICE person. truly he is. but he is possibly the worst lecturer/professor on campus. he doesnt know how to lecture in an organized way and his tests are unrelated to any class material. .... that is all i have to say.
DONT TAKE THIS CLASS. dont take it if youre a geography major, dont take it for a GE, dont take it because it sounds interesting. the prof. is a NICE person. truly he is. but he is possibly the worst lecturer/professor on campus. he doesnt know how to lecture in an organized way and his tests are unrelated to any class material. .... that is all i have to say.
Most Helpful Review
Professor Zackey is the man. He is the best professor I've had at UCLA so far. I didn't take geography 2 with him, but I had to put it sinc there was no option for the class I took. I had his GE Seminar for the environment cluster and loved it. He made the material very interesting and was always concerned with student learning. He is very approachable and easy to talk to. I highly recommend taking any of class he teaches!
Professor Zackey is the man. He is the best professor I've had at UCLA so far. I didn't take geography 2 with him, but I had to put it sinc there was no option for the class I took. I had his GE Seminar for the environment cluster and loved it. He made the material very interesting and was always concerned with student learning. He is very approachable and easy to talk to. I highly recommend taking any of class he teaches!
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