ENVIR 100: Introduction to Environmental Studies
Winter 2025
Course Description
Designed as an introduction to environmental studies, this course will provide a survey of the latest science, news, and conversations related to the environment and humanity's role within it. We will focus on the idea that solving environmental and social challenges involves applying knowledge from many fields, including economics, political science, demography, biology, history, philosophy, law, and more. Because environmental challenges often occur over large spans of space and time, resolving environmental issues often requires a holistic understanding of environmental and social processes at local, regional, and international scales. This course offers an introduction to all of the above – to environmental studies, broadly conceived.
In class, you will be asked to integrate material from many different academic disciplines and apply those insights and methods to actual problems and situations, at scales from the local to the global. You will have the opportunity to discuss and debate ideas in lecture and in sections. Your learning will be evaluated with exams, short writing assignments, and class participation. As a culmination of the course, you will prepare a poster for presentation. Additionally, many of you will choose to deepen your understanding of environmental studies by participating firsthand in environmental work, through community engaged learning.
Learning Objectives
1. Recognize that the complexity in environmental problems requires us to work from a variety of disciplines and perspectives- to understand the science, history, and cultural context behind the problems and how individuals and societies respond to those problems.
2. Demonstrate content knowledge around environmental issues facing our planet and explain trade-offs in addressing environmental issues through personal, political, cultural, or technological solutions that range in scale from local to global.
3. Illustrate how impacts from environmental degradation are not borne equally in all countries or communities. Provide examples of the ways that negative environmental impacts disproportionately burden vulnerable communities by race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Connect the importance of redressing environmental justice and social equity in resolving environmental problems.
4. Practice environmental communication and critical thinking skills, through peer engagement, iterative writing assignments, a team project, and a public poster or multi-media presentation.