Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Environmental Decision-Making, Ezra Markowitz

Sustainability Education Resources

Over the past 30 years, there has been a growing recognition amongst environmental advocates, resource managers, policymakers and researchers that the underlying cause of most environmental, conservation and sustainability issues is human behavior. As NRC and ENVIRSCI majors, you have received extensive technical training in how natural systems operate yet relatively little training when it comes to influencing or understanding how people make environmental decisions that affect those natural systems. Recognizing the fundamental role that human decision-making plays in shaping the environment reveals a new set of tools and approaches for both understanding the challenges we face and confronting those …

Understanding Food And Climate Change: A Systems Perspective, Megan Brockelbank

Sustainability Education Resources

Climate change will profoundly affect our lives in many ways, even down to the very food we eat. Food is essential for survival and our complex food system, and all that depends on it, face a big threat with climate change. Throughout the semester we will explore the links between the food system and our changing climate with an emphasis on systems thinking. In science we tend to segregate, looking at just one part of a system, while systems thinking looks at the whole picture. Using this approach, we will think critically about how to build a more resilient food …

Beyond Green Cars And Goddesses: Gender, The Global Environment, And Sustainability, Kiran Asher

Sustainability Education Resources

Gender, the environment and sustainability are key terms in debates about economic globalization and social justice. While not new, they are reemerging as part of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. This course will introduce students to the perceived and existing links between women, gender, and the global environment as they appear in 21st century discussions about sustainable development. Through readings, lectures and discussions will explore the following questions:  When did the environment and sustainability emerge as key biological and social issues on global agendas?  What are their connections to economic globalization? To colonialism and capitalism?  How did …

Food And/As Communication, Leda M. Cooks

Sustainability Education Resources

This is a two-semester, eight-credit Communication Honors Thesis Seminar focusing on the ways we create and reflect meanings made about food. The seminar delves into the material and social meanings of food and implications for identity, culture and social justice. Students will have the opportunity to research food in the context of the meanings made about it in various institutions, businesses, nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, cultures and communities. The first semester HONORS 499 CL (Fall 2020) will 1) introduce students to food as a vehicle through which society and social life is communicated; 2) introduce methods and tools for conducting survey …

Sustainable Grape Production, Elsa Petit

Sustainability Education Resources

I am excited for you to join me and your colleague students (Sustainable Food and Farming, Sustainable Horticulture, Mathematics, Food Science, Biology, Individual concentration) on this course in Sustainable Grape Production. The course is fully remote with synchronous meetings offered through Zoom. The industry of cool climate viticulture is growing thanks to newly bred varieties adapted to our local conditions. A number of small, family-run vineyards have been opening in New England. You will learn the principles and practices governing the establishment and management of an organic or sustainable vineyard. You will learn practices such as pruning, grafting, and vineyard …

Governing Knowledge Commons, Charlie Schweik

Sustainability Education Resources

Over the last decade or more, there has been a detectable and growing dissatisfaction among students with the "status quo" in the way the society works. Students have witnessed terrorism, long-term war, a "great recession," the "Occupy" movement, effects of climate change and worse projections to come, and most recently, a global pandemic with a great impact on the economy. Many students are looking for models of hope and alternatives to the status quo on how society at local, regional and global levels might operate to collectively address problems.

In this course, we will review historical and contemporary commons cases. …

Drawing The City, Sandy Litchfield

Sustainability Education Resources

How do we represent the spatial and social complexities of contemporary urban environments? And why is this important for artists, designers, planners, architects, and landscape architects?

Twenty-first century cities are complex, messy and wicked. They can be dazzling, magnificent and aweinspiring, full of diverse culture, creative activity, architectural marvels, and cutting-edge innovation. But they are also facing some of the most challenging problems in history– unprecedented economic inequality, sea level change, unpredictable weather events and severe pollution to name just a few. In trying to understand such a complicated system, we need to develop and hone new and distinctive methodsforrepresentation …

Environmental Decision-Making (Nrc 494 Ei), Ezra Markowitz

Sustainability Education Resources

Over the past 30 years, there has been a growing recognition amongst environmental advocates, resource managers, policymakers and researchers that the underlying cause of most environmental, conservation and sustainability issues is human behavior. As NRC and ENVIRSCI majors, you have received extensive technical training in how natural systems operate yet relatively little training when it comes to influencing or understanding how people make environmental decisions that affect those natural systems. Recognizing the fundamental role that human decision-making plays in shaping the environment reveals a new set of tools and approaches for both understanding the challenges we face and confronting those …

Analytical Methods For Energy And Climate Policy, Dwayne Breger

Sustainability Education Resources

Course Description

The course will introduce students to analytical methods applicable to the evaluation of energy and climate problems and policy solutions. The methods include ethical analysis, spreadsheet analysis, lifecycle analysis, optimization and systems analysis. While applicable across many fields, the methods will be applied through class and assignments to current issues in clean energy and climate policy.

Learning Objectives

The course will provide students with the understanding and skills to analytically address issues of policy pertaining to clean energy and climate policy. Students will understand the theory and practice associated with conducting economic cost benefit analysis, optimization under constraints …

Wildlife Habitat Management, Paige Warren

Sustainability Education Resources

The primary goal for this course is to help you put into practice tools you have been acquiring in your other Natural Resources Conservation courses. We will explore wildlife-habitat relationships in depth, through the lenses of basic field zoology and natural history, evolutionary biology, and ecological theory. We will introduce you to quantitative tools used to explain ecological processes and their influence on wildlife and their environment. We will examine the dynamics and management of various habitats in New England, North America, and elsewhere through field visits and use of primary literature. But most importantly, we will ask you to …

Syllabus: Social Mission Enterprises, Betsy Schmidt

Sustainability Education Resources

This course is for students who dream of starting, running, or working for a social mission enterprise---an organization that meets a specific social mission, makes a financial profit, and considers the environmental and personal impacts of its actions. In this class, students will take initial steps towards creating a fictional social mission enterprise, with practicing social entrepreneurs acting as mentors. Students will also complete a project that will help solve an issue facing the social enterprise with which their mentor is affiliated. The course begins with a discussion of the issues around which students hope to pursue change and of …

Syllabus: Social And Environmental Enterprises, Betsy Schmidt

Sustainability Education Resources

Social and Environmental Enterprises examines organizations that place a social mission ahead of or on par with their financial mission. While studying real and fictionalized social enterprises, we discuss the structures within which social enterprises can thrive, potential sources for funding, the best governance structures, compensation, issues that arise when the organization scales and faces transitions, and tax considerations. We consider the current business, legal, and public policy context for social enterprises, as well as the public policy measures that could foster a healthier social sector.

Syllabus: How To Recover A Truly Sustainable Food System: A Look At Food Waste And Recovery, Mary Bell, Angela Roell

Sustainability Education Resources

This course is an introduction to food waste, and the impact waste has on our food system. We will introduces the current food recovery hierarchy, and examines how consumers, producers and distributors waste food. We will explore the environmental and social impact of food waste in our food system, and introduce social and policy initiatives employed to recover food. Students will read, refect and discuss the actionable steps being taken to shift our local food system's food waste into food recovery.

Syllabus: Writing About Food, Carol Connare

Sustainability Education Resources

This course approaches food writing from a news reporting perspective. The Pioneer Valley is home to a network of food producers, from farmers and cheesemakers to brewers and beekeepers. Students will travel into the field to meet people who make and grow what we eat, conducting interviews and collecting information to synthesize into multimedia stories for publication around themes such as health, history, travel, ecology, animal welfare, social change, nutrition, and home cooking. Students will experience the full spectrum of food writing—blogs, magazine articles, personal essays, reviews, recipe-centered pieces, social and cultural commentary—and create stories in a variety of these …

The (Slow) Incorporation Of Contemplative Practices Into My Courses, Lena Fletcher

Sustainability Education Resources

Learning Goals include: Opening students up to the power of mindfulness and demystify contemplative practices by making them accessible (and enjoyable); Offering students the tools for developing the core emotional and personal strength that can be accessed through these practices. They will need them to fully face the environmental problems ahead; Guiding students through practicing the skills they will need for being part of the solution; Presenting mindfulness as an approach to grounding and strength in that struggle.

Syllabus: Introduction To Permaculture, Lisa Depiano

Sustainability Education Resources

The Permaculture Design Course is a three-credit course that offers students a foundation in permaculture history, ethics, principles, design process, and practical applications. The framework behind the theory and practice of permaculture is rooted in the observation of natural systems. By observing key ecological relationships, we can mimic and apply these beneficial relationships in the design of systems that serve humans while helping to restore the natural world. This course trains students as critical thinkers, observers, and analysts of the world(s) around them, and then goes on to provide students with the tools needed to design for inspired and positive …

Syllabus: Sustainable Living: Solutions For The 21st Century, Laurie Simmons

Sustainability Education Resources

Your generation has been handed an opportunity: the opportunity to change the story of our culture from one of blind consumption to one of conscious ecological living. As individuals, as a society and as a species, we are facing challenges related to sustainability including economic stability, social justice, resource depletion and waste management, biodiversity preservation, climate adaptation and food and agricultural resilience. In this interdisciplinary course you will learn how to seize this opportunity by working with your peers to research and understand how sustainability in different contexts presents solutions to many of these challenges facing modern society. “Sustainable Living” …

Syllabus: Experiential Reflections On Public Policy, With A Spotlight On Sustainability, Marissa Carrere

Sustainability Education Resources

In this course, students will study a theoretical model for understanding and analyzing public policy, and they will apply this model to their professional and life experience. This course focuses on the application of theoretical material to narrative accounts of a student’s experience, with the goal of informing experience through interdisciplinary research. With a collaborative work environment and through regular small-group and full-class discussions, this course critically investigates real world public policy issues.