Our planet supports a staggeringly diverse abundance of life, from massive whales to minute bacteria. With species numbering in the many millions, these diverse creatures interact in many complex ways, forming critical functions of the many ecosystems that span our world. However, these ecosystems are changing; troublesome factors like climate change, invasive species, habitat destruction, pollution and exploitation – most of these problems caused or made worse by human activity – are transforming these ecosystems, and impacting the many species that inhabit them. Without intervention, many species will disappear from these systems (as many have already), and our lives will be forever affected by their absence. In our class, we explore the immense diversity of life, the many threats to their continued existence, and what we are doing to mitigate those threats and save them from extinction. Throughout the course, we explore key ecological concepts like food webs and nutrient cycling in the context of conservation, while also discussing historical and current social, ethical and political issues in the field of conservation management, including hands-on experience analyzing data and creating real risk assessments for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – a sample of critical work conservation managers and researchers do day-to-day. Special attention is paid to our local environment here in the heart of New York City, as even a habitat as extreme as ours is home to organisms that deserve attention, study and protection. This course satisfies the Intermediate/Advanced Science Course requirement for the Interdisciplinary Science major. This course satisfies the Natural Science requirement for the Environmental Studies major. Prerequisites: LSCI 2320 Microbial Ecologies OR UENV 2010 Urban Ecosystems