Transcript title

Introduction to Sustainability

Credits

4

Grading mode

Standard letter grades

Total contact hours

40

Lecture hours

40

Course Description

Explores the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability. Defines and applies basic principles of sustainability to address today’s most pressing environmental and social challenges. Develops an understanding of how individual behaviors affect community and global health. Approaches sustainability from a multidisciplinary perspective by integrating faculty from across the curriculum, including public health, biology, natural resources, sociology, and economics. Includes 4 hours of service learning at an off-campus location.

Course learning outcomes

1. Define sustainability and explain the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic systems.
2. Sustainability outcome: Analyze the major environmental, social, and economic challenges and potential solutions of our time using a systems thinking approach.
3. Engage in critical discussion about the impact of human behaviors on natural systems.
4. Evaluate the sustainability of individual and collective actions on a local and global scale.
5. Sustainability outcome: Apply principles of sustainability to the development of personal values and professional goals.
6. Explain the relationship between human behavior and/or conditions and health.

Content outline

1. Foundations of sustainability: defining and measuring sustainability; Systems Thinking; history of the sustainability movement
2. Geographic perspectives: climate change; current status and future predictions
3. Ecological perspectives: the biosphere and natural systems; energy transfer; ecosystem services
4. Energy issues: fossil fuels; renewable energy; conservation as resource
5. Consumerism: environmental and social impacts; reduce, reuse, and recycle
6. Food and agriculture: environmental and social impacts of agriculture; food sovereignty
7. Environmental ethics: the global commons; the Land Ethic; indigenous perspectives
8. Natural resource management: principles, practices, and policies
9. Social justice: Native American assimilation; The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; connections between social and environmental sustainability
10. Social perspectives: defining social problems and exploring social movements
11. Economic perspectives: balancing planet, people, and profit; corporate social responsibility

Required materials

None.

General education/Related instruction lists

• Social Science