Took this lab with Alyssa and she is the bomb.com. The class itself is pretty boring, but she did her best to keep our spirits up during the pandemic. Unfortunately, in an online format the research design is pretty limited so i'd recommend taking it in person. Although it is an easy A for an online class IMO.

Amazing!! This class is highkey extremely life changing and will affect the way you see and do things in your day-to-day life. I HIGHLY recommend taking this at some point.

Professor Lipman is really cool. Documentaries in this class were spectacular. This class is also super doable!

I loved the class and professor Lipman so much. It's a perfect science GE for those who are not pursuing a major in STEM, but who are interested in current events going on within the realm of the environment or science. I thought the material discussed in the course was relevant, engaging, and very important. Prof Lipman is very well versed within this field and she's laid-back and funny.This class honestly changed the way I think and act. Due to COVID, the midterm and final were 24 hour open-book and were pretty easy as long as you watched lectures and maybe lightly skimmed the course readings and films. There is quite a bit of extra material, I found it interesting so I didn't mind watching it. I don't think its completely necessary if you'd rather skip it. There are a few group projects in the lab which were kind of difficult online. Overall, TAKE THIS CLASS! It's seriously awesome.

Grading was:
50 points -- midterm which we had a weekend to complete (four short answer questions, with multiple points)
50 points -- final exam which we had 24 hours to complete, or could go during the 3-hour time slot and do it with a group they assigned on zoom (same structure as midterm)
70 points -- quizzes based on lecture and readings each week, not too bad if you paid attention, worst quiz grade is dropped
80 points -- discussion section, includes a 10 min group presentation on conservation organizations and a 30-40min partner presentation/discussion you lead based on a reading, as well as general participation in other people's partner discussions

Prof Lipman is very passionate about what she teaches. Her lectures were super relevant for the exams but she also gives a lot of very specific examples of conservation efforts that are interesting but take up a lot of lecture time and don't come up again. I never read the textbook, but I did check it a few times during the exams.

The exams did mark off on specific things (like if you didn't mention MEAT agriculture when you said agriculture) but were doable if you take decent notes and can come up with general ideas for conservation plans. Pay attention in lecture when people brainstorm ideas/annotate on the slides because you can use those ideas on the exams.

Discussions require participation but Alec is a really chill TA so take him if you can. The presentation aren't too bad.

Even though I received an A, I would not recommend this class. TA's are extremely unclear with expectations for the midterm. Your grade is highly variable and there is no way of knowing what the professor/TA wants at any given moment. This extends to the midterm and final. Even though I answered all parts of the question with factual evidence, points were continuously marked off with TA's saying "this is correct but you also could have said this..." TBH this class could have gone either way for me and I could have just as easily gotten a B. I just happened to get lucky.

There was a lot more reading, writing, and talking in this class than I expected. Lectures are quite enjoyable and engaging, and the content is definitely interesting. Discussion sections are almost two hours long, which can be pretty excruciating. Participation also matters, and you are expected to speak in sections at least twice to get full credit. You are given a lot of time for exams but they are really long and took me forever to finish. Grading seemed pretty fair to me, but I think it depends on your TA. Overall, do not think this is a super easy class because quite a bit of effort is required. That being said, you will learn a lot and Lipman is a nice professor.

I really did enjoy this class, because of how passionate Professor Lipman, the TAs, and other students are about the subject! Most students who are taking this class actually are interested and care about the subject, so class discussions are very engaging. Professor Lipman tries to make these lectures engaging by using polls, annotate activities, and breakout rooms. There is a lot of reading for this class, that isn't necessary to understand lectures, but is super helpful for exams. My quarter she structured it with a midterm, final, weekly quizzes, and discussion grades (discussion grades comprised of participation, a group presentation on a reading, and a group presentation on conservation organizations). Discussion readings were pretty interesting, and the contents often come up on the weekly quizzes. The exams were hard because of time constraints and page length constraints. Both the exams were all short answer, but multiple parts of each question. The difficulty was that we were given a limited amount of space, but asked to answer many questions with a wide breadth and depth. She pushes for group writing for the final, but you had the option to take it alone, which I did and did just fine.

Overall the class was very easy and eye opening. She has a lot of cool personal stories that relate to the concepts and it kinda just makes the class more enjoyable, feels kinda like a conversation. A bog majority of homework and lecture are just watching youtube video(I am not complaining). The labs and lab reports are easy for the most part but they are time consuming; luckily I had a good group and everyone worked. Tests are kinda weird but if you pay attention in class and understanding the basic concepts, you'll get an A or B on them. Overall, this class really showed me how much an average human affects the earth in a very easy way. I would take one of her classes again. P.S. I was 3 points away from an A but I didnt do the extra credit(5 points) so i kinda screwed myself over.

Lipman teaches the ecology portion. Lipman is generally a good lecturer, but the way this class is structured is really stupid, and her policies are crazy. Discussion is pointless, with a student-led presentation about articles that generally have little connection to the actual course material, so there's no point in reading them besides you have to for the grade. I think our time could have been used better but I guess that's how it is. Lipman gave the final, I did kinda bad on the midterm but pretty well on the final. I can see why people think her questions are ambiguous and very specific, but all of the material was covered, so while it wasn't new, she was super nitpicky, which was very annoying. She also was not responsive, she has a "no email policy" (wtf, you're a professor in a remote environment, email is our only form of communication, how are you going to have a no email policy) and was passive-aggressive when the ambiguous questions were brought to her attention. I would not take this class with her, and if you have no other choice, then be prepared to pay close attention to all the material, and work on understanding scientific literature.

If you got lipman you’re in for some not so fun times. My complaints are her tricky exams, for example she likes to talk about multiple things as posible answers but in the exam there’s only one answer kinda thing.-. Also make sure to pay attention to specific details of articles assigned, and specifically what she says about them. Apparently the authors words matter less than what she says bc there was an exam question with both options and only hers was right. Wouldn’t take again