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Preference to freshmen. Field trips to sites in the Elkhorn Slough, a small agriculturally impacted estuary that opens into Monterey Bay, a model ecosystem for understanding the complexity of estuaries, and one of California's last remaining coastal wetlands. Readings include Jane Caffrey's "Changes in a California Estuary: A Profile of Elkhorn Slough". Basics of biogeochemistry, microbiology, oceanography, ecology, pollution, and environmental management.

Welfare-reform legislation passed by the federal government in the mid-1990s heralded a dramatic step in the movement that has been termed the devolution revolution, which is again being discussed in the context of healthcare reform. The centerpiece of devolution is the transfer of more responsibilities for antipoverty programs to the states. We will explore the effects of these reforms and the role that devolution plays in the ongoing debates over the designs of programs that make up America's social safety net. In addition to discussing conventional welfare programs (e.g., Medicaid, food stamps, TANF, SSI) and other governmental policies assisting low-income families (EITC, minimum wages), we will examine the trends in governmental spending on anti-poverty programs and how our nation defines poverty and eligibility for income support. We will apply economics principles throughout to understand the effectiveness of America's antipoverty programs and their consequences on the behavior and circumstances of families. Prerequisites: A basic understanding/knowledge of introductory economics is recommended.

The United States has long been perceived as a land of opportunity for immigrants. Yet, both in the past and today, policy makers have often expressed concerns that immigrants fail to integrate into US society and lower wages for existing workers. There is an increasingly heated debate about how strict migration policy should be. This debate is rarely based on discussion of facts about immigrants assimilation. This class will review the literature on historical and contemporary migrant flows. We will tackle three major questions in the economics of immigration: whether immigrants were positively or negatively selected from their sending countries; how immigrants assimilated into the US economy and society; and what effects that immigration may have on the economy, including the effect of immigration on native employment and wages. In each case, we will present studies covering the two main eras of US immigration history, the Age of Mass Migration from Europe (1850-1920) and the recent period of renewed mass migration from Asia and Latin America. Students will participate in a final project, which could include developing their own recommendations for how to design immigration policy in the US. Prerequisite: Completion of ECON 1 in a previous quarter; concurrent enrollment in ECON 1 in Winter Quarter; or, approved ECON 1 waiver on file with the Department of Economics.

Examines the intimate relationship between environmental quality and the production and consumption of energy. Assesses the economics efficiency and political economy implications of a number of current topics in energy and environmental economics. Topics include: the economic theory of exhaustible resources, Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) control (cap and trade mechanisms and carbon fees), GHG emissions offsets, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the "smart" transmission grid for electricity, nuclear energy and nuclear waste, the real cost of renewable energy, natural gas and coal-fired electricity production, the global coal and natural gas markets, Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) and Low-Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS), Energy Efficiency Investments and Demand Response, and Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). For all topics, there will be reading to explain the economics and engineering behind the topic and class discussion to clarify and elaborate on this interaction. Prerequisite: Econ 1 is recommended.

In this class we will discuss the economic and institutional causes of the rise in inequality in the US and other countries over the last 40 years. We will also discuss the consequences of inequality in terms of social justice, economic welfare, aggregate economic performance, intergenerational mobility, and the possible implications of inequality for the recent global financial crisis.

The seminar will provide an introduction and discussion of the impact of public policy on personal finance. Voters regularly rate the economy as one of the most important factors shaping their political views and most of those opinions are focused on their individual bottom lines. In this course we will discuss the rationale for different public policies and how they affect personal financial situations. We will explore personal finance issues such as taxes, loans, charity, insurance, and pensions. Using the context of (hypothetical) personal finance positions, we will discuss the public policy implications of various proposals and how they affect different groups of people, for example: the implications of differential tax rates for different types of income, the promotion of home ownership in the U.S., and policies to care for our aging population. While economic policy will be the focus of much of the course, we will also examine some of the implications of social policies on personal finance as well. There will be weekly readings and several short policy-related writing assignments.

This course is an exploration. Most generally, its aim is to identify distinguishing features of good diverse communities and articulate them well enough to offer principles or guidelines for how to design and manage such communities - all with a particular focus on educational communities like schools, universities, academic disciplines, etc., but with the hope that such principles might generalize to other kinds of organizations and the broader society. The readings range from those on the origins of human communities and social identities to those on intergroup trust building. They also aim to embed our discussions in the major diversity issues of the day, or example, what's in the news about campus life. nnThus the course has a practical purpose: to develop testable ideas for improving the comfort level, fairness and goodness-for-all of identity diverse communities--especially in educational settings. nnThe course also has a basic science purpose: to explore the psychological significance of community. Is there a psychological need for community? Is there something about a need for community that can't be reduced to other needs, for example, for a gender, racial or sexual-orientation identity? How strong is the need for community against other needs? What kinds of human groupings can satisfy it? In meeting this need, can membership in one community substitute for membership in others? What do people need from communities in order to thrive in them? Do strong diverse communities dampen intergroup biases? Can strong community loyalty mitigate identity tensions within communities? nnSuch questions, the hope is, will help us develop a more systematic understanding of the challenges and opportunities inherent in diverse human communities.

This course is a Freshman Introductory Seminar that has as its purpose introducing students to the sociolinguistic study of bilingualism by focusing on bilingual communities in this country and on bilingual individuals who use two languages in their everyday lives. Much attention is given to the history, significance, and consequences of language contact in the United States. The course focuses on the experiences of long-term US minority populations as well as that of recent immigrants.

Preference to freshmen. The stories behind disruptive inventions such as the telegraph, telephone, wireless, television, transistor, and chip are as important as the inventions themselves, for they elucidate broadly applicable scientific principles. Focus is on studying consumer devices; projects include building batteries, energy conversion devices and semiconductors from pocket change. Students may propose topics and projects of interest to them. The trajectory of the course is determined in large part by the students themselves.