Overall, this course was very informative since it was a lecture-based class. I learned a lot about different types of ecosystems like mangroves, wetlands, and mudflats. Also been taught a variety of species living within them and the negative impacts humans have on these ecosystems. For my final presentation, I choose to research the torrey pine tree that grows on the coast of San Diego. I found that researching this was very interesting to me because it is a very rare tree and there’s a risk of extinction for them since they take a long time to grow back in such a dry, hot environment. These kinds of environments are steadily increasing because of climate change warming our earth so much that it's causing species to be extinct since some have a harder time adapting to the climate change effects. Doing this presentation really gave me confidence about my knowledge I learned throughout this course by applying human impacts, biodiversity and possible solutions to my chosen interest. Also I learned how to effectively read over a dense scientific study and be able to communicate the information so people can understand what it was about. This skill is very important because now in some of my classes, I have to be able to read through such studies and convey a more understanding way to regular people. So, this course definitely prepared me for my future classes and gave me a better sense that I wanted to go into environmental studies.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1O0iZ_eIYG6ckcgcUiY8jV78vZORT1LUcpbYjqfxnn1c/edit#slide=id.g180a30d5dc7_0_174