ROBERT COLE,  The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA  98505
       Environmental Modeling in an Interdisciplinary Setting

An interdisciplinary program designed to teach environmental studies 
students techniques of mathematical modeling will be described.  Student 
backgrounds varied widely, from those with an environmental science 
emphasis to those primarily interested in environmental policy.  Calculus 
was a co-requisite for this program; most of the students enrolled had 
already completed calculus.  Salient features of this program included: 
workshop-based classes, rather than lectures; collaborative learning 
strategies; use of case-studies; and computer labs using STELLA II, as 
well as Mathcad software.  Both difference and differential equation 
models were explored, with emphasis placed on the assumptions and 
limitations of various models.  Topics covered ranged from population 
dynamics (single and multiple species), to harvesting models in fisheries 
and forestry, to temporal and spatial diffusion of pollutants in biological
organisms and systems, to epidemic models of the dynamics of infectious