This Interdisciplinary study of current environmental issues evaluates how integrating biological, chemical, geological, and physical principles are vital for identifying and understanding environmental issues and shaping policies for practical solutions. Discussions will focus on global environmental problems, energy consumption, including global warming, air and water quality, urbanization, human population growth, biodiversity waste, and other environmental changes occurring on a global scale.
Prerequisite Courses
Competency
Scientific Reasoning
Course Outcomes
After successfully completing the course, the learner will be able to:
- Understand and define commonly used terminology environmental science;
- Describe and summarize and global, regional, and landscape-scale ecological processes and systems;
- Describe common and adverse human impacts on biotic communities, soil, water, and air quality and suggest sustainable strategies to mitigate these impacts;
- Critically evaluate presented information and data using scientific principles and concepts, synthesize popular media reports/articles discussing environmental issues.
- Apply learned information to postulated environmental scenarios to predict potential outcomes.
- Understand the influence of social and cultural context on sustainable resource management.
- Understand the role of uncertainty in environmental science and management.
- Understand the standard ways of collecting and interpreting data about biological, chemical, and physical processes that influence the biosphere.
- Understand how fundamental scientific principles inform environmental policy.
- Explain the interactions between humans and other organisms within environmental issues