This course provides an introduction to the interactions between humans, natural resources, and ecosystems, from a social science perspective. This course meets the General Education (GE) requirement in Social Sciences: Human, Natural, and Economic Resources. Students will understand the systematic study of human behavior and cognition; the structure of human societies, cultures, and institutions; and the processes by which individuals, groups, and societies interact, communicate, and use human, natural, and economic resources. Students understand the theories and methods of social scientific inquiry as they apply to the study of the use and distribution of human, natural, and economic resources and decisions and policies concerning such resources. Students understand the political, economic, and social trade-offs reflected in individual decisions and societal policymaking and enforcement and their similarities and differences across contexts.
This designated service-learning course is popular with upper-level undergraduate, and incoming graduate students studying environmental social science. Many students are a part of OSU’s community development specialization which helps students, “develop a conceptual understanding of community, development and the environment and acquire the skills needed to implement positive social, economic and environmental change.”[1] To help students achieve these ambitions I have working with OSU’s Service Learning Center and the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning to develop this syllabus using a backward design process. This process means the skills and knowledge a student needs to leave the class with are identified first, and the course activities are created around these goals.
The course goals were partly developed by examining other syllabi in the field of environmental demography as well as examining surveys of employers and international standards for environmental education and are as follows:
Proficiency with Geographic Information Systems software, surveys, and spatial data.
Experience with systems thinking.
Understanding and planning effective stakeholder engagement.
Developing analysis skills and interpreting data.
Developing project management and planning skills.
Learning about social demography
Each offering of this class I work to develop a tangible project for the students to achieve these goals. In the past we have hosted a public art exhibit, volunteered at urban farms, developed radio programs, worked with local non-profits to evaluate policy proposals, developed policy briefs, and organized a lobbying day at the Ohio Statehouse.
This course is targeted at upper-level graduate students. While Environmental Sociology is often considered a relatively new branch of sociology, it draws upon the rich tradition of Human Ecology established by Chicago School sociologists in the 1920s and 1930s.
The overarching goals of this course are to develop students' scholarly understanding of the diverse interactions between human society and the environment and to cultivate the skills necessary for success beyond graduate school. We will study and evaluate transformative texts to explore how, by the 1970s, the environment emerged as a new cause célèbre. To understand these "new" issues, scholars integrated perspectives from sociology, history, political science, public health, psychology, and geography.