sustainability minor -- Overview

Photos by Erika Nicosia

The sustainability minor is envisioned as an 18-unit multi- and interdisciplinary program that will address the environmental, economic, and ethical complexity inherent in problems of sustainability. All fields, including the Natural and Life Sciences, Social Sciences, Business, Engineering, Health Sciences and the Arts and Humanities, could and do have a logical connection with the topic of sustainability.

Wherever possible, course designers are encouraged to engage students through a variety of learning modalities including experiential learning, service learning, and other forms of course delivery that maximize student opportunity for a wide variety of learning modalities.

Students who complete the minor in sustainability at URI will be expected to

• understand and articulate the core values of sustainability;
• identify personal and societal barriers to change and possible solutions;
• demonstrate knowledge of sustainable practices and their effects on the environment, social equity, and the economy; and
• display the ability to think across scales, from home to global.

Thirteen professors from 14 disciplines and programs are developing courses for the minor:

Courses Proposed for Sustainability Minor

Professor(s)	Departments	Course Title	Description
David Abedon and Thomas Husband	Community Planning and Landscape Architecture; Natural Resources Science	CPL/NRS 404--Field Investigations of Sustainable Models in Tropical Landscapes	Integrative capstone course-- applied problems and issues related to sustainability —examining the effects of human activities on the sustainability of tropical ecosystems.
Nancy Cook	English	300 Level Survey Course--Gen Ed Imagining Sustainability: Literature, the Environment, and the Social in American Culture	Ways writers have attempted to define, defend, and critique what they perceive to be Americans’ relation to place
Barry Coasta-Pierce and Stephen Olsen	RI Sea Grant, CRC, Graduate School of Oceanography	Sustainable Oceans and Coastal Zones: An Innovative Interactive, Internet Classroom — Field Course at URI	Web course encouraging international teams to work on coastal problems.
Graham Forrester	Natural Resources Science	Tropical Marine Conservation	Lectures, seminars, discussion and reading on tropical marine conservation in addition to field component in British Virgin Islands
Cheryl Foster	Honors/ Philosophy	PHL454 Philosophy of the Natural Environment to include a unit on sustainability theories and practices (Modification of existing course). Philosophy, Culture and the Environment	Introduction to philosophical reasoning about issues of environmental concern. Emphasis on issues related to Grow Smart RINew Gen Ed Course integrating technical skills in critical reasoning / analysis with a variety of cross-disciplinary content areas and local projects. Survey of environmental history and values. Writing primary means by which students would reflect on and address the issues surrounding sustainability – also applied research, group interaction and problem-based outreach to local and state communities.
Kathleen Gorham	Hunger Studies	HSS 130: Introduction to Hunger Studies	Course modification to add service learning component, broaden to include global food insecurity, obstacles to a food secure world. Examine possibility of co-teaching.
Will Green	CPLA	Sustainable Community Design Studio	Brings students from different disciplines together to work on a real-world sustainability design problem
Ric McIntyre	Economics	Is Globalization Sustainable?	Examining connections between globalization and sustainability. Teams of students will examine sustainability issues in two locals. The first will be a place which has experienced capital flight; the second is one to which capital has flown.
Judith Swift	Communications / Theater	2 courses: Sustainability and Film Communication and Sustainability	Using films to generate learning about sustainability – for example, Mosquito Coast. Communicating ideas about sustainability: appropriate media and tactics for persuading an audience that doesn’t care and isn’t engaged.
Rob Thompson	CPLA	Community Planning and Sustainability	Integrating sustainability into transportation, housing, business, education, and recreation.
Tim Tyrrell	ENRE	Development of Web based Sustainability Components of REN356 (Tourism Economics)	Sustainable Community-based Development: Economic and other tools for analyzing tourism in a Community System Framework

 

 

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