Professor Robinson is such a caring professor, and she was accommodating if you asked her about the contents and the details of the final paper. Her lecture is based on the slides, so it is easy to catch up if you miss a lecture, even though it is not recorded. The first half of the class was the fundamental knowledge about the ecosystem, but the second half was much more details about the processes, which were more challenging than the first half. The grading scheme was quite reasonable; she gave extra credit for the botanical garden fieldwork that she led students herself. The final paper allowed students to write up a research proposal on any topic of interest regarding the ecosystem and its challenges, which I gained a deeper understanding of my topic. Even though I am not personally very into physical geography, I learned something valuable from the class. The class was very organized, and the workload was manageable, so I would recommend this class as a great physical geography upper-division class.

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! :)

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.

Geography 5 is an interesting and fairly easy GE in terms of content and structure. However, I had a very negative experience taking it in Winter Quarter, 2021. Although Professor Robinson was the professor, all prerecorded lectures (made in winter 2020) were done by Professor Cavanaugh. Professor Robinson structured the workload and distribution of material, I believe.
The workload was VERY heavy for a GE and the requirements were very unclear and inconsistent. Professor Robinson was not accomodating towards any conditions that may prevent someone from completing their assignments (no late work tolerated- internet issues are not an excuse), which I find is very classist/ableist especially during a pandemic. My TA was accomodating, however.
Professor Robinson was very open to questions but replied in a seemingly passive-aggressive and rude tone. Since assignments were, again, inconsistent and unclear, students had very reasonable questions but the Professor's responses were accusatory and chastising. This made me wary of asking any questions necessary for completing the work. This was a general consensus among students.

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.

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.

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!!

I completely agree with the other review but I didn't think the class warranted 2.0! I personally found it super interesting but yes the workload was a bit way too much and requirements were pretty inconsistent.

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.

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