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ENS Core Courses

The ENS Core courses are designed to introduce the students to a broad range of environmental topics, policy needs, current issues, and fundamental environmental knowledge. ENS 201 and ENS 202 will serve as introductory courses to provide a foundation in environmental and sustainability studies within the humanities, social and natural sciences, and policy. Most importantly, the students will learn, in their first year of study, that the concept of sustainability can be applied to all academic subjects. ENS 201 and 202 will thereby provide an ideal foundation upon which to build the student's capabilities in environmental and sustainability studies.

Required ENS Core Courses

  1. ENS 201 Environmental & Sustainability Studies I: Humanities and Social Sciences (3)
     
  2. ENS 202 Environmental & Sustainability Studies II: Natural Sciences and Policy (3)
     
  3. ENS 300 Special Topics in Environmental Studies (3)
     
  4. Choose one course from the following (3):
    ENG 425 Environmental Writing
    WRD 304 Writing in the Social Sciences
    WRD 305 Writing Public Science
    WRD 310 Writing in the Natural Sciences
     
  5. PHI 336 Environmental Ethics (3)
     
  6. ENS 400 Senior Seminar in Environmental & Sustainability Studies (3)

Total required core course credit hours - 18

Core Course Descriptions

1. ENS 201 Environmental & Sustainability Studies I: Humanities and Social Sciences

This course exposes students to core ideas, theoretical concerns, and practical approaches to environmental studies framed within the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. Students will study various envirnomental and sustainability theoretical approaches and perspectives and then learn how to apply those to various real-world situations. Some of the core ideas surveyed in this class include: population and scarcity, markets and commodities, environmental ethics, political economy, risks and hazards, and the social construction of nature.

Student Learning OutcomesUpon completion of this course students will be able to:

  • Explain the differences in historical, cultural, and philosophical traditions towards the environment.
  • Analyze and critique a specific sustainability management program instituted at the local level.
  • Evaluate the roles that stakeholder and societal diversity play in environmental concerns.
  • Explain how and why environmental toxins and hazards disproportionately affect people of color, low income communities, women, and people of the Global South.
  • Analyze the link between local and global environmental concerns.
  • Apply knowledge gained through the course to reveal social, cultural, gendered, racial and other dimensions of diversity to a given environmental issue (such as a “commodity chain”).

2. ENS 202 Environmental and Sustainability Studies II: Natural Sciences and Policy

This course, offered each spring, is an introduction to the Natural Science and Policy of Environmental & Sustainability Studies. The core ideas include understanding how the theories about ecological community structure, ecosystem dynamics, and climate change lay a scientific foundation to understanding the nature of current environmental issues and how they might be addressed individually and through governmental legislation. The course will provide core concepts that will be utilized and developed further in the degree electives.

Student Learning OutcomesUpon completion of this course students will be able to:

  • Understand basic ecological theory from a scientific perspective.
  • Explain the reasons for existing environmental problems.
  • Understand different approaches and strategies to solve existing environmental problems.
  • Show how environmental policies require fundamental scientific developments.
  • Understand the implications of environmental policies for the public well-being.

3. ENS 300 Special Topics in Environmental & Sustainability Studies

This course serves two primary purposes within the ENS B.A. degree. It provides a means of introducing new courses that are needed within the major requirements under the degree themes. It will also allow the introduction of new, important topics into the degree program, possibly on a multi-year basis or more frequently.

4. Choose one course from the following to meet the ENS Graduation Composition and Communication Requirement (3):

  1. ENG 425 Environmental Writing
    ENG 425 will examine environmental writing related to landscapes, natural history, field guides, scientific ecology, travel pieces, and many more. The course will explore influential environmental writers including John Muir, Edward Abbey, and E. O. Wilson. Students will be inspired to write about the natural world around them through course field trips and other field exercises. This writing will be submitted in stages and reviewed in workshop groups.
     
  2. WRD 304 Writing in the Social Sciences
    Instruction and practice with the major genres and argumentative structures of writing in the social sciences. Special emphasis on and practice with the written norms that shape disciplinary knowledge in social scientific fields.
     
  3. WRD 305 Writing Public Science
    Instruction and practice with popular audience genres and arguments in and about science, intended for both science and non-science majors. 
     
  4. WRD 310 Writing in the Natural Sciences
    Instruction and practice with the major genres and argumentative structures of writing in the natural sciences. Special emphasis on and practice with the written norms that shape disciplinary knowledge in the natural sciences.
     

5. PHI 336 Environmental Ethics

In Environmental Ethics, we study the theory of our ethical relation to the nonhuman world, the social and political contexts in which these ethical theories function, and the idea of sustainability. Some basic questions we ask include the following: How does an environmental ethic differ from traditional ethical theories? Do nonhuman animals or ecosystems have moral worth, and if so, how can competing moral claims between distinct moral entities be adjudicated? What is the human place in nature? How ought we to conserve the natural world? What is sustainability, and in what sense is this an ethical theory?

Student Learning Outcomes: At the conclusion of class, students will be able to

  • Demonstrate skills necessary to read complex and dense texts comprehendingly
  • Explain and defend one's own ethical standpoint according to basic theories & concepts
  • Summarize and critique ethical positions from the perspective of traditionally underrepresented groups
  • Describe the system of public lands protection in the United States and analyze the philosophical ideas Underlying the main public lands management agencies in the Federal Government
  • Identify and assess one's own concrete interaction to their surrounding world, especially in reference to the concept of sustainability

6. ENS 400 Capstone Course in Environmental and Sustainability Studies

The ENS capstone course explores the importance of the ideas and concepts students learned in the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program.  The course provides the skillsets needed to enter the job market and/or graduate school in the field of Environmental and Sustainability Studies. It is a participatory capstone seminar designed to utilize and test your critical ability for independent thinking organized around specific environmental issues. Independent library work and writing assignments will be required in order to prepare for weekly, interactive topical seminar meetings. Group projects will culminate in individual term papers/projects on different aspects of the environmental issues under discussion. Specific topics will vary.