8 courses with the subject ECST, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ECST 1100Introduction to Environmental and Climate Studies4
Goals: To introduce students to the study of interactions between humans and the environment from an interdisciplinary perspective; to expose students to multiple viewpoints on environmental issues; to acquaint students with internship opportunities in environmental and climate studies.
Crosslisted: Also listed as ANTH 1500 This course considers the conditions that make it possible for people – and societies, and our more-than-human neighbors – to live together on Earth in the longer term. Surveying the conditions of global crises such as climate change and environmental injustices, as well as exploring how those crises make us feel and treat each other, our readings, discussions, and in-class collaborative projects help us understand what it will take to care for the Earth as home as we move together into the future. We explore socio-cultural, economic, and political relationships from the perspectives of anthropology and environmental studies to better understand how we have arrived, globally, at profound disparities in wealth, health, life expectancy, population density, and access to opportunity and hope. In contrast, we explore global grocery chains and land commons projects to understand how people are rebuilding these systems, and to practice creating and sharing instructions for “planetary home care.” Drawing broadly on contemporary literature from geography, economics, political science, rural sociology, anthropology, and Afro- and Indigenous futurisms, this course helps prepare students to grapple with some of the more challenging issues of our post-colonial world, with its global division of labor, cultures of consumption-as-self-soothing, differential poverty and privilege, intellectual property battles, increasing systemic instabilities in the face of climate crisis and pandemics, and social responses to global connectivity. Course comes with Planetary playlist.
ECST 1600Anthropocene: Culture and Climate Change4
Crosslisted: Also listed as ANTH 1600 Modern humans appeared in the most recent moment of Earth’s long geologic history, and yet in a spectacularly short time we have dramatically impacted our planet. Human-induced changes to the landscape, chemical composition of the atmosphere, and the living biosphere have accelerated to the point that the Earth is no longer the planet on which our species evolved. It has been suggested that the planet has, in fact, already changed so much that it should be named as a new geologic era: The Anthropocene. This course introduces the anthropological study of the Anthropocene—a holistic consideration of the world humans have made through our use of technology, our means of production, our systems of consumption, our waste, and the many other expressions of human culture that are changing the Earth. As an introductory course, it focuses on basic literacy with the foundational questions of human culture and the biosphere. It is framed by five questions that structure the content of the class: What should we call this period? What is happening? How did we get here? Does the Anthropocene have a culture? How do we learn to live in this world we have made? Some key topics of interest include deep time, material culture, media, evolution, nature, kinship, ruins, adaptation and solidarity. As these issues are a shared concern of humanity, this course spends considerable time investigating difference and collaborative means for a human response.
ECST 3330Feeding a Crowd: Intergenerational Justice Work in the Food Movement4
Goals: To explore theories and methods of studying society-environment dynamics and to become comfortable using these theories and methods in community-engaged contexts, via the topic of the contemporary food movement. We investigate processes of collaborative adaptive co-management of commonly shared environmental resources and benefits, like land and water, and document these processes drawing on social practice art methods and platforms. Content: We use the public practice of sharing meals between local youth and elders engaged in food movement work, and focus on civil rights and environmental justice themes in this work, along with the representation of these practices and themes in public discourse, social media, and shared spectacles. Each year, we focus on two community case studies, documenting these case studies along with community partners through the Eating Together podcast and platforms of the community’s choice, and studying reparative practices in urban agriculture and community nourishment.
Students focus on problem-based, community-engaged action research projects around sustainability strategies, action education, and storytelling, such as: waste and nutrient flows and energy and transportation systems, and the development of active learning strategies (including field trips, outdoor classroom spaces, community-engaged programming, and action research). This course also helps prepare students to work in various Sustainability Systems – on and off campus. Learning is the central function of colleges and universities. By learning through a strategic sustainability lens, higher education institutions can continue to help the world understand sustainability challenges and develop new technologies, strategies, and approaches to address those challenges. As individuals and groups, we can use sustainability research and education methods to learn what’s happening in the world around us, and to assess how our interventions are working. Campuses provide wonderful real-world classrooms for actively exploring how to measure and improve the sustainability of the various processes that support our everyday lives. Students that actively participate in making their communities more sustainable are well prepared to continue that work in their careers and communities after graduation. In this course, students learn how to frame, develop, and explore environmental and climate questions, conducting group intervention projects and field-trip based field study.
Subject
ECST
Credits (min)
2
Credits (max)
2
Credit unit
Credits
Type
course
Repeatable
may be repeated and can also be taken as ESTD 3854 for 4 credits.
Students focus on problem-based, community-engaged action research projects around sustainability strategies, action education, and storytelling, such as: waste and nutrient flows and energy and transportation systems, and the development of active learning strategies (including field trips, outdoor classroom spaces, community-engaged programming, and action research). This course also helps prepare students to work in various Sustainability Systems – on and off campus. Learning is the central function of colleges and universities. By learning through a strategic sustainability lens, higher education institutions can continue to help the world understand sustainability challenges and develop new technologies, strategies, and approaches to address those challenges. As individuals and groups, we can use sustainability research and education methods to learn what’s happening in the world around us, and to assess how our interventions are working. Campuses provide wonderful real-world classrooms for actively exploring how to measure and improve the sustainability of the various processes that support our everyday lives. Students that actively participate in making their communities more sustainable are well prepared to continue that work in their careers and communities after graduation. In this course, students learn how to frame, develop, and explore environmental and climate questions, conducting group intervention projects and field-trip based field study.
Subject
ECST
Credits (min)
4
Credits (max)
4
Credit unit
Credits
Type
course
Repeatable
may be repeated and can also be taken as ESTD 3852 for 2 credits.
Goals: To actively engage in environmental education through conducting research, designing and delivering interpretive media and programs, and critically reflecting on environmental experiences in order to better understand and communicate about environmental systems and relationships. Content: This seminar offers students from any program experience analyzing and interpreting environmental issues through the development of programs, presentations, media, and other formats. We will practice environmental communication and education about a variety of topics related to the environment and climate as selected by students and program partners. Students collaborate with each other to analyze readings, experience and evaluate programs and to develop and lead experiences centered on environmental topics of local and global significance. Students will be assigned to a field site such as a nature center, park, school, or organization to develop and conduct interpretive programs, develop media, and assist as needed to gain a range of experience and translate theory to practice. Students learn to effectively write and communicate about environmental topics, to engage multiple stakeholders and develop and submit a proposal for potential further work – for research, education, environmental justice advocacy, or for funding a project or further studies. Students are encouraged (but not required!) to build connections between this course and internship experiences.
Crosslisted: Also listed as ANTH 5950 Goals: To provide majors, in their senior year, the opportunity to bring together the variety of content and knowledge from the courses they have taken to broadly address theoretical or conceptual issues of contemporary relevance in the field. Content: This is a capstone course in the major that emphasizes the competencies of working in groups, understanding multiple viewpoints, discussion and presentation skills, critique, and the production of high quality written work. This course is intended to reaffirm the learning objectives of the program, and to be a gateway to using knowledge beyond the university in the world of work, or within further professional training.
ANTH 1160 and at least one 3000-level anthropology course (for anthropology majors), or ECST 1100 and ECST 1500 (for environmental and climate studies majors) Credits: 4
