ENVS 315 Water on the Silk Roads

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the fascinating environments and societies of Uzbekistan, and Central Asia more broadly, a part of the world that people in the US often know nothing about except that these are the “stans.” We will probe human-environment interactions around agriculture, irrigation and water management, infrastructure development, and global trade through travel through Uzbekistan on the Silk Roads – both past and present – including Tashkent (the current capital), Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, and the Republic of Karakalpakstan, home to the Amu Daryo delta and the Aral Sea. The major assignment for this class is a non-paper project. You will begin collecting questions, data, and sources during our travel to Uzbekistan, and complete your work after returning to the US.

This program is an interdisciplinary collaboration of Rhodes College (USA), "Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers" National Research University [TIIAME-NRU], and Institute of Agriculture and Agrotechnologies of Karakalpakstan [IAAK]. You will be learning from experts trained in many areas including geography, hydrology, biology, economics, and history. While some of our learning will take place in the classroom, much will take place on foot, on minibuses, and on trains.