courses

Many courses on the UF campus are committed to education/research in Biodiversity.  We encourage faculty/departments to submit info on your courses to UF Biolink at https://ufbiolink.squarespace.com/course-submissions/ so that we may add them to our list of courses engaging with issues of biodiversity.

Summer A 2019: ART 3807C - Costa Rica Art & Scientific Illustration

Instructor: Mindy Lighthipe, College of the Arts

Study first-hand the biology of fauna and flora of the tropical rainforest of scientific worldCosta Rica. The emphasis of this program is on basic aspects of tropical rainforest and its natural history, while recording it through the discipline of scientific illustration. You will learn to record information via illustration.Drawing, sketching, color notes and the use of photography are utilized in this program to get the most out of a field experience. Learning to draw isa great asset to students of all disciplines as it enhances acute observation and greater knowledge of the subjects studied. The experience is intended to be multifaceted in its educational appeal to art, zoology, biology, wildlife conservation, entomology, agricultural and botany majors. Entrepreneur and business majors can also benefit from this course as many of the locations show how businesses are owned and operated by sole proprietors in both profit and non-profit businesses using conservation efforts.

For more info on this study abroad opportunity…

SPRING 2019: ZOO 4926/ ART 3807C - Studiolab: Linking Art & Science

Professors: Sean Miller (Art & Art History) and Jamie Gillooly (Biology)
M,W | Period 8 - 10 (3:00 PM - 6:00 PM)
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This is an interdisciplinary course that combines art and science. The course will explore how we can introduce concepts, processes, and knowledge from the sciences and apply them to the creation of art; and how we can introduce concepts, processes and knowledge
from the arts and apply them to scientific research. The course will include talks by visiting scholars that specialize in merging science and art, as well as readings and discussions on interdisciplinary topics in art and science. The main emphasis of the course will involve science and art students coming together as teams to create works that combine the two disciplines. The course will culminate in a final exhibition of projects created during the course.

If you are interested or would like further information please contact:
Associate Professors Sean Miller (artist; swarp@ufl.edu) or Jamie
Gillooly (biologist; gillooly@ufl.edu).

Enrollment is limited.

SPRING 2018: ART4639C/ART6671 – Food, Art + Technology: Consumption, Production, Digestion and Excretion

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Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30-11:30 (open to grads + undergrads)
Katerie Gladdys | Professor, Art + Technology, School of Art and Art History | University of Florida

This 3-credit graduate/undergraduate course is an exploration of food and its relation to both art and technology. What we eat, how what we eat is packaged, our experience of what we eat and the systems of food production are intertwined with technology. Many contemporary artists are examining food as part of the content of their work. We will explore the intersection between food, technology, and art practice. Initially we consider the intertwined senses of taste and smell material for aesthetic production and attempt to use these senses as a medium for communicating ideas and messages. This class invites students to think about using senses in addition to sight (considering touch, smell and taste) as possible interfaces and /or methodologies to convey ideas. As citizens of a land grant university, we have the singular opportunity to experience and interact with cutting edge research in food science and agricultural production. The class also examines the connections between our personal consumption and industrial food systems as potentials for self-expression. The readings in this class encompass philosophy, botany, biology, physiology, social justice issues, contemporary art practice, critical theory, home economics, natural resources, anthropology and fiction. To facilitate our experience of the production of food, the class will volunteer in the Campus Garden. We investigate a broad range of the research by visiting labs and talking with experts on the UF campus and locally. Then we perform experiments and interventions with our surroundings as consumer, artists and researchers, gardeners, cooks, etc. with the intention of developing strategies nurture and develop the final project: an interpretive display, poetic documentary or piece of communicative artwork.

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Class format consists of readings and discussion, fieldtrips both on campus and in the community, individual and collaborative hands-on activities. In this class, you are required to read, to create work and to engage physically with the environment. We discuss readings and the outcomes of your "experiments" and interventions with taste, smell, and various facets of food systems.  Please contact Professor Katerie Gladdys at  kgladdys@ufl.edu for more information.


SPRING 2018: ARH6666 Colonial Latin American Art Seminar:
Classifying the Natural World

Maya Stanfield-Mazzi | Professor of Art History | School of Art + Art History |  University of Florida
Monday 3–5,  Fine Arts Building C, room  116A
3 credits

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After establishing the contours of Linnaean taxonomy and the modern cladistic model of the Tree of Life, this course will consider how past cultures of the Americas have classified the species of the natural world. The goal will be to uncover structures of knowledge and the ways they are visualized, and understand what happens when different cultural structures collide and blend. We will examine the taxonomies employed by native peoples such as those of the Paracas/Nasca culture of ancient Peru, identifying the relationships and hierarchies that were established and the ways these were represented in art. We will then study how the Spanish conquest led to new desires and ways of knowing the natural world. We will look at encyclopedic approaches such as those seen in the Florentine Codex as well as the approaches taken in more focused herbals such as the Cruz-Badiano Codex. We will then study Enlightenment-inspired late colonial projects such as the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada (1783–1816), which produced thousands of botanical illustrations. The class will also consider less “scientific” approaches to taxonomy such as those found in the floral ornamentation of religious art.


FALL 2017: REL3938/RLG6167– Radical EnvironmentalisM

Bron Taylor | Professor of Religion & Nature | University of Florida
Fellow | Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München

Have you been following the Native American protests in North Dakota? Have you noticed that water and the environmental is called “sacred” and the protests “ceremonies”? Did you know that soon after the Earth First! formed in 1980, such groups have been engaged in many campaigns in solidarity with Native Americans who, in their own ways, consider nature sacred and worthy of reverent defense? Did you know that religions originating in Asia, various streams of Paganism, as well as personal experience in nature and with non-human organisms, are common wellsprings of these movements?

The course is open to both undergraduate and graduate students - Rel 3938 (undergraduate section) Rlg 6167 (graduate section).
or a gateway to the course syllabus and resources, click here.


FALL 2017: BOT 2710C – Practical Plant Taxonomy

Introduction to plant taxonomy including principles of systematic botany, nomenclature and classification, but emphasizing identification. Student will be able to identify the common ferns, fern allies, gymnosperms and flowering plants of field and garden.