CLIMATE CHANGE, SUSTAINABILITY, AND EDUCATION

EDPOL 423

How do people conceptualize and utilize education to (attempt to) create individual, familial, community, institutional, national, and global change? Push collective understanding about the diverse ways that people have conceptualized change, its goals, and the mechanisms through which to produce change around the world. Explore a diverse range of educational approaches (including formal, informal, non-formal, and "traditional" educational models) to transforming the world. Draw on a range of disciplinary and sectoral approaches, including education, public health, and public policy; and a broad range of change models, including individual and peer behavior change, social marketing, social movements, chaos theory, and liberation theory.

ENVIRST 349

Climate change is being felt, and addressed, at every level of society, from the individual to the global scale. Examine efforts to mitigate climate change. Learn about initiatives that are being implemented through international treaties; national, state, and municipal government policies; corporate programs; and individual behavior. Examine the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, their successes, and the obstacles they have faced. Evaluate various forms of climate activism as a means of pushing for meaningful action on climate change.

CURRIC/ENVIRST 932

Education is often portrayed as a critical part of the solution to the intertwined problems of environment and society. Examines environmental education and related traditions such as nature study, conservation education, and outdoor education, as well as more recent movements such as place-based education and education for sustainability. Grounds discussions in concrete examples of educational practice, considers historical and contemporary critiques of environmental education.

ENVIRST/GEOG 139

Explores the global and local nature of environmental problems, including issues of climate change, food, energy, globalization, deforestation, biodiversity loss, resource access, environmental justice, and population. Considers how we should analyze and act on environmental problems as we confront the apparently daunting scale of such issues. What appear to be single global environmental issues are actually composed of many smaller, context-specific, and place-dependent problems or conflicts. Through an interdisciplinary and geographic perspective, these issues can be understood and addressed at the scale of our lived lives.

C&ESOC/CURRIC/ENVIRST 405

How can education - for children and adults, in school and out - help to address crucial environmental and social sustainability challenges? What ideas and strategies have guided environmental and sustainability education over the years? What can individual people do to address environmental challenges, and what can only be accomplished by people working together? What does sustainability have to do with justice - and vice versa? Examine the principles behind behavior change and empowerment, community action and whole-scale social reform. Drawing on research and theory from across the social sciences, we will explore the uncertain relationship between education and advocacy, seeking the means by which education can have the greatest impact without compromising the core ideals of a democratic society.