Essentials of Environmental Science

With streamlined coverage of ecology, agriculture, energy, and water Essentials of Environmental Science provides a focused treatment of science concepts to help you think think critically about the data presented.

Rick Relyea is Director of the Jefferson Project at Lake George for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a groundbreaking partnership between Rensselaer, IBM, and the FUND for Lake George. For the project, Relyea leads a team of Rensselaer scientists, engineers, computer scientists, and other experts who are using the latest in science and technology to understand, predict and enable a resilient ecosystem for nearby Lake George.  From 1999 to 2014, Relyea was at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2005, he was named the Chancellor’s Distinguished Researcher and in 2014 he received the Tina and David Bellet Award for Teaching Excellence. From 2007-2014, Relyea served as the director of the university’s field station, the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, where he oversaw a diverse set of ecological field courses and facilitates researchers from around the world. Rick has taught thousands of undergraduate students in introductory ecology, behavioral ecology, and evolution. His research is recognized throughout the world and has been published in Ecology, Ecology Letters, American Naturalist, PNAS, and other leading ecological journals. The research spans a wide range of ecological and evolutionary topics including animal behavior, sexual selection, ecotoxicology, disease ecology, phenotypic plasticity, community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and landscape ecology. Currently Relyea’s research focuses on aquatic habitats and the diversity of species that live in these ecosystems.  David Courard-Hauri is an Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. At Drake, Dr. Courard-Hauri teaches courses on Environmental Science, Climate Change Science and Policy, Quantitative Methods in Environmental Decision Making, and Ecological Economics. With a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University, and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princetons Woodrow Wilson School, Dr. Courard-Hauri seeks in his research to combine aspects of environmental science, economics, and public policy in his work modeling economic consumption and its environmental impacts. He walks to work, and in his spare time cares for a multitude of fruit trees and berries in his yard.