Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

• describe and understand differing approaches to dividing Quaternary time.

• explain the sequence of major climate events and discuss their causes.

• demonstrate a knowledge of the evolution of Recent plants and animals (including humans) and the effects that Quaternary environmental change has had upon them.

• discuss the causes, dynamics of, and evidence for Quaternary glaciations

• demonstrate knowledge of the effects Quaternary change has had upon ocean circulation and interlinkages within the ice- ocean-atmosphere system.

• use basic geomorphological, sedimentological and stratigraphic techniques to interpret Quaternary sediments, landforms, and landscapes.

• choose the appropriate environmental proxies for a given setting or sediment and to demonstrate a knowledge of the appropriate methodologies for processing and interpreting those proxies.

• demonstrate a knowledge of the different Quaternary dating techniques and their assumptions, and discuss their application to different problems and environmental settings.

• discuss some of the key Quaternary events, scientific controversies, and alternative hypotheses, as they relate to Alberta and Canada.

• understand and effectively use published papers from scientific journals as a research tool.

• effectively discuss recent and new research in the field of Quaternary Science

• demonstrate an understanding of the implications that long-term environmental change has for studying modern Earth systems.