Transcript title

Creating a Sustainable Society

Credits

4

Grading mode

Standard letter grades

Total contact hours

40

Lecture hours

40

Recommended preparation

SUS 101 or SUS 102 or SUS 103.

Course Description

Empowers students to act, both individually and collectively, to strive to create a more sustainable world. Specific topics include climate change, air and water pollution, natural resource use, and food and agriculture issues. Approaches sustainability using a multi-disciplinary and systems-thinking approach, with a priority placed on the implementation of actionable solutions.

Course learning outcomes

1. Sustainability outcome: Analyze the major environmental, social, and economic challenges and potential solutions of our time using a multi-disciplinary and systems thinking approach.
2. Sustainability outcome: Apply principles of sustainability to the development of personal values and professional goals.
3. Analyze all stakeholders concerned with a particular issue concerning sustainability.
4. Create sustainable solutions to environmental, social, and economic problems based on peer-reviewed research.
5. Evaluate visual media for accuracy, validity and possible biases.

Content outline

1. Review of sustainability definitions and topics.
2. Sustainability ethics, rationale for caring.
3. Overview of organizations involved in sustainability work (global, national, local).
4. Library research methods.
5. Mapping, cartographic methods.
6. Tragedy of the commons, problems and solutions.
7. Sustainable societal design, problems and solutions.
8. Water scarcity and conservation, problems and solutions.
9. Food security and sustainability, problems and solutions.
10. Writing a persuasive letter, making a persuasive argument.
11. Final written and oral student presentations.

Required materials

All required course readings will be provided.

General education/Related instruction lists

• Social Science