Please go to the Student Information Form, fill it out and submit it. It would also be good if you would go to the Discussion Forum for the class and post an entry describing what you expect to get out of the class.

It will be helpful to review the syllabus, assignments, and resources before coming to class. Now is the time to negotiate changes.

In preparation for class on the 22nd, please go to 6 Billion Human Beings and work through this tutorial. One of the first issues we will consider in the course is Population and Population Growth. Part One of your textbook, The State of the World Atlas deals with people, starting with population and continuing with life expectancy, nutrition, quality of life, inequality, and age. Please study the text and the maps in this section and come prepared to discuss them. Another timely resource is "The State of the World Population 2000 Report." It can be found on the UNFPA -- United National Population Fund site. Think about what impact information and libraries might have on some of the issues described.

It will be useful to be grounded geographically at the outset of a course on international issues. The population tutorial cited above has a number of dynamic maps relating various population statistics and predictions to six major areas of the world: North American, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Africa. Using these areas as a top-down entree, pick one of them that you know the least about, list the countries and be prepared to share some interesting facts about three of the countries with the class. You might use an almanac for some background information. For a more serious set of maps, please see University of Texas online map collection. Many of these maps were produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Come to class on January 22 prepared to discuss your international interests, issues of interest to you, and particular countries or regions of the work you would like to explore in more depth.

Revised 1/18/2001
If you have questions, please contact Evelyn Daniel