Spring 2027

Sustainability Tools: Systems Thinking & Life Cycle Assessment

Introduces systems thinking and life cycle assessment (LCA) as tools for analyzing sustainability issues from local to global scales, covering supply chains, stocks, flows, and feedback loops.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Tim Lindstrom

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.90 GPA, 96.6% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.92 GPA, 96.7% A/AB (n=30 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.87 GPA, 97.7% A/AB (n=43 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Analyze sustainability issues and/or practices using a systems-based approach.

  • Use sustainability principles for developing personal goals and professional values.

  • Explain life cycle and systems thinking approaches to addressing sustainability issues while evaluating their utility compared with alternative or traditional approaches to problem solving.

  • Apply systems thinking concepts such as stocks, flows, and feedback loops to specific contexts ranging from local campus systems to global systems.

  • Characterize the life cycle stages for a product system or process and quantify the relevant inputs and outputs at each stage.

  • Determine the goal, scope, and relevant functional unit for a life cycle assessment and evaluate the environmental sustainability of a system by interpreting a life cycle assessment on a product or process.

  • Connect the sustainability-related aspects of campus-based systems to local, national, and global contexts.

  • Evaluate the role that life cycle assessment and systems thinking can have in addressing sustainability concepts such as (1) the triple bottom line, (2) industrial ecology, and (3) the circular economy.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
ENVIRST 326

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 500

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.90 GPA, 96.6% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.92 GPA, 96.7% A/AB (n=30 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.87 GPA, 97.7% A/AB (n=43 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Life cycle assessment (LCA) and cradle-to-grave supply chains
  • Triple bottom line, industrial ecology, and circular economy
  • System dynamics: stocks, flows, feedback loops, and unintended consequences

Skills

  • Systems-based analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) interpretation
  • Quantifying inputs and outputs across product or process life cycles

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
ENVIRST 326 · Spring 2027

Sustainability Tools: Systems Thinking & Life Cycle Assessment

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:360:026048",
    "course_id": "ENVIRST 326",
    "course_uid": "course_0727d30df24570059a14bbfe",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026048",
    "source_subject_id": "360",
    "title": "Sustainability Tools: Systems Thinking & Life Cycle Assessment",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "ea1eb54b57e8da17e7eb73a8b70873c3cc74cf025c284fc89f0c30e22393eafc",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}