SFRC Graduate Courses

FNR course
FOR course
PCB course
SUR course

FNR Courses

FNR5072C Environmental Education Program Development - offered as requested - 3 credits - No prerequisites - Comprehensive approach, from needs assessment to evaluation, applied to youth-based, nonformal environmental education.  Required field trip and group project.

FNR5335 Agroforestry - offered every spring semester - 3 credits - No prerequisites - Biological, ecological, socio-economic, and technical / managerial aspects of tree / crop, tree / animal, and tree / crop / animal systems.  Examples of traditional and modern, rotational and intercropped systems, and analysis of their structure, functioning, and potentials, with special reference to the tropics and sub-tropics.

FNR5608 Research Planning - offered every fall semester - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Required for all new MS students.  History and philosophy of science, scientific method, development of a research proposal.  Research facilities and programs are presented.

FOR courses

FOR5157 Ecosystem Restoration Principles and Practice - 3 credits - History, structure, importance, ecology, restoration and management techniques, ownership patterns and policy implications.

FOR5159 Ecology and Restoration of Longleaf Pine Ecosystems - 3 credits - Prereq: an ecology course - History, structure, importance, ecology, restoration and management techniques, ownership patterns and policy implications.

FOR5161 Forest Productivity and Health - offered spring of even years - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Silviculture, disease management, and genetic improvement.  Stand development and composition, growth limiting factors, epidemiology, choice of species and provenance, and tree breeding.

FOR5435 Forest Information Systems - offered spring of even years - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Role of reliable information in forest resources managemen.  Important sources of information.  Cost-effective solution: precision vs. cost.  Sampling methodology.  Forestry applications of remote sensing, geographic information systems, and global positioning system.  Database management systems.  Information sharing and dissemination through internet / world wide web.

FOR5615 Forest Conservation and Management Policies and Issues - offered every fall - 3 credits - No prerequisites - Current policies in both North America and internationally.  Historical patterns of resource use and policy response reviewed as basis for evaluation current issues.

FOR5625 Forest Water Resources Management - offered spring of even years - 3 credits - Requires SOS3022 - Forest managment practices in relation to hydrologic responses and water quality considerations.

FOR5626 Forest Resource Management - offered spring of even years - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Application of operations research and forest economics and finance to problems; harvest scheduling; forest manipulation for multiple objectives; economic decision making.

FOR5756 Non-Timber Forest Products -offered as requested -3 credits - Intensive review of non-timber forest products worldwide, and how forests are managed to provide these products.

FOR6005 Conservation Behavior -offered as requested -3 credits - Methods for changing behavior in various groups to improve environmental sustainability.

FOR6154 Analysis of Forest Ecosystems - offered spring of even years - 3 credits - Requires graduate status or consent of instructor - Energy, water, carbon and nutrient fluxes in forests; applications to forest and landscape management.

FOR6156 Simulation Analysis of Forest Ecosystems - offered every spring semester - 3 credits - Requires basic knowledge of Ecology, and the ability to use Algebra - Conceptual basis, evaluation, implementation, testing, and analysis of forest tree simulation models.

FOR6164C Silviculture: Concepts and Applcation - offered every spring - 3 credits - Requires graduate status or consent of instructor - Promotes understanding of principles governing establishment, treatment, and control of forest stands; regeneration systems; intermediate cuttings; intensive cultural practices; land use ethics; and management systems.

FOR6170 Tropical Forestry - offered every spring - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Climatic influences, forest types, natural forest and plantation management, policies, practices, and conservation.

FOR6310 Forest Genetics and Tree Improvement - offered as requested - 3 credits - No prerequisites - Review of mendelian, poulation, and quantitative genetics as important in natural forests and breeding programs of forest trees.  Principles of tree improvement programs, gene conservation, and breeding strategy development for wide variety of tree species.

FOR6340 Physiology of Forest Trees - offered Spring of odd years - 3 credits - Requires graduate status or consent of instructor - Growth and development of woody perennial plants with emphasis on understanding how environmental factors affect their physiology.

FOR6345 Plant Water Relations Methods - offered Spring of even years - 2 credits - Requires consent of instructor -This two credit course will focus on instruments and techniques used to quantify water balance and status in plants in the field. Emphasis will be placed on the theory, assumptions, advantages and shortcomings of various measurement techniques. Course activities will include discussions, laboratory exercises, problem sets, and a final term paper or comprehensive exam.

FOR6543 Valuation of Forest Resource - offered spring of odd years - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Extension of microeconomic principles to problems in forest production, supply behavior, forest valuation, and multiple-use of forest lands.

FOR6628 Community Forest Management -offered every fall -3 credits -This course integrated theory from the socio-economic and bio-physical sciences with the on-the-ground realities in implementing community –based forest management and conservation.

FOR6665 Landscape Planning for Ecotourism - offered every fall - 3 credits - No prerequisites - Discussion of the history of nature-based recreation, the principles behind ecotourism, examples of international ecotourism offerings, and procedures for integrating ecotourism into a management plan.

FOR6905 Research Problems in Forest Resources & Conservation - offered every semester - 1 to 6 credits (maximum of 10) - Requires permission of instructor

FOR6910 Supervised Research - offered every semester - 1 to 5 credits (maximum of 10) - Requires permission of instructor - S/U graded

FOR6933 Seminar - offered every fall and spring - 1 credit (maximum of 2) - Weekly seminar on various issues and topics in natural resource management, including internal and external research projects.  S/U or standard graded.

FOR6934 Fire Ecology and Management - offered every spring - 3 credits - Requiresgraduate status - Focus on fire behavior, issues involving role of fire in resource management, fire ecology – plant, animal and human responses.

FOR6934 Topics in Forest Resources and Conservation - offered at instructor's discretion - 1 to 4 credits (maximum of 10) - Requires FY classification - Selected topics in forestry and natural resource management

FOR6940 Supervised Teaching - offered every semester - 1 to 5 credits (maximum of 5) - Requires permission of instructor - S/U graded

FOR6971 - Research for Master's Thesis - offered every semester - 1 to 15 credits - Requires FY classification - S/U graded

FOR7979 Advanced Research - offered every semester - 1 to 12 credits - Requires FY classification - Research for doctoral students before admission to candidacy.  Designed for students with a master's degree in the field of study who have been accepted for a doctoral program.  Not open to students who have been admitted to candidacy.  S/U graded

FOR7980 Research for Doctoral Dissertation - offered every semester - 1 to 15 credits - Requires FY classification - S/U graded

PCB courses

PCB5530 Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology -offered every fall -3 credits -undergraduate molecular biology and biochemistry course. -Integrated overview of the fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms enabling plant growth, development, and function.

PCB6528 Plant Molecular Biology - offered spring of even years - 3 credits - Requires BCH6415 and PCB5065 (or equivalents) - Structure, function, and analysis of plant genomes, genes, and gene products.  Lecture format with frequent discussion of recent papers.  Genome structure, transformation, gene tagging, transcription, signal transduction, organelles, protein trafficking.

PCB6555 Introduction to Quantitative Genetics - offered spring of odd years - 3 credits - Requires STA6166 - Intended for students of all disciplines who are interested in genetic principles and biometric evaluation of characters that exhibit continuous variation in natural populations or breeding programs.

SUR courses

SUR5365 Digital Mapping - offered fall od even years - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Methods of digital representation of maps, coordinate development, digitizing, stereocompilation, scanning, remote sensing, hardware and software systems, file conversion, integration into GIS, and attribute development.

SUR5385 Remote Sensing Applications - offered - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Review of remote sensing systems, image classification methods, mapping applications, integration of remotely sensed data into GIS, application of data for variety of spatial information systems.

SUR5391C Geomatics: Spatial Foundations of GIS - offered - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Basic concepts and principles behind quality control of spatial measurements underlying GIS, as well as measurement technologies such as GPS.

SUR5425 Cadastral Information Systems - offered - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Methods of cadastral mapping for tax and/or GIS applications; interpretation of deed and survey information, the sectional survey system, conflict resolution, and cadastral information.

SUR5525 Least Squares Adjusted Computations - offered - 3 credits - Requires computer programming proficiency and consent of instructor - Implementation of least squares solutions for survey-mapping and GIS applications, time and storage optimization; error analysis, initial approximation generation; robust estimations; and computer programming.

SUR5625 Geographic Information Systems Analysis - offered - 3 credits - Requires introductory GIS course - Analytical tools such as software grid modules, database query, map algebra, and distance operations; analytical operations such as database query, derivative mapping, and process modeling; sources and nature of uncertainty and error, and project planning management.

SUR6375 Terrain Analysis and Mapping - offered - 3 credits - Requires consent of instructor - Digital and visual methods, interprative techniques to identify landforms, soils, and potential site analysis problems from aerial photography and digital maps.

SUR6395 Topics in GIS - offered at instructor's discretion - 3 credits (6 max) - Requires consent of instructor - Database development, economic impact of GIS, development of standards, integration of data sets, hardware and software developments, advances in GIS technology, etc.

SUR6427 Land Tenure and Administration - offered - 3 credits - Requires SUR5425 or consent of instructor - Issues and problems, and design of projects to address these problems in developing countries.

SUR6535 GPS-INS Integration - offered every spring - 3 credits - Prerequisites - solid mathematics background especially vector calculus and matrix algebra - Principles of inertial navigation and its integration with GPS; coordinate frames, modeling linear motion and rotational motion, mechanization of inertial navigation sensor measurements, space state representation of system errors and linear state equations.