2025-2026 Academic Catalog

Aug 13, 2025

2025-2026 Academic Catalog

BIOL 251 - Plants, People, and Fungi

For thousands of years, human societies have relied on plants and fungi as food, medicine, and materials. Plants and fungi are sources of spiritual inspiration, intellectual discovery, and cultural identity. Use of plants and fungi has profound impacts both on human societies and on the plants and fungi themselves, for example, through processes of domestication and diversification. Our diverse relationships with plants and fungi are threatened by habitat destruction, industrialization, and climate change. This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of ethnobotany, which examines historic and contemporary relations between people, plants and fungi from biological and cultural perspectives. The course engages scientific research as well as diverse Indigenous knowledge systems. We will explore production and use of plants and fungi by cultural groups across the globe, including reflections on our own traditions. The last part of the course will focus on knowledge and practice to conserve plant and fungal diversity in the face of ecological and climatic crises.

Prerequisites: BIOL 102 and (BIOL 101 or EN 101 or ID 125)

Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year