This course will provide a broad and comprehensive perspective of sustainability practices. Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of sustainability through lectures, readings, field study activities, and guest speakers. The emphasis of this course will be on helping students incorporate sustainability practices in their lifestyle and experience at GVSU. Offered fall and winter semesters.
Winter 2025 - Online
An introduction to interdisciplinary understanding of the multiple ways that human society influences, and is influenced by, its natural environment. The course uses frameworks such as systems thinking and design thinking to integrate scientific, economic, political, and socio-cultural perspectives on topics in environmental and sustainability studies. Offered fall and winter semesters.
An exploration of the history and meaning of concepts of sustainability. Special attention to the challenges of defining the term; its ethical, political, and descriptive meanings; its use in different sustainability models; its "strong" and "weak" versions; and its relation to concepts of development and growth. Offered fall and winter semesters. Prerequisite: ENS 201.
This course introduces students to interdisciplinary scholarly or creative methods that apply to environmental and sustainability studies. Students compare and evaluate data, sources, and findings of selected research in the life sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and prepare their own integrated scholarly or creative proposal, blending methods of distinctive disciplines. Offered fall and winter semesters. Prerequisite: ENS 201 or the permission of the instructor.
Environmental justice addresses environmental racism, inequity, and the broad disparities in how environmental benefits and burdens are distributed across communities. This course will provide an overview of the historical, conceptual, and practical dimensions of the environmental justice movement, and of the critical social and political thought at its core. Cross-listed with PHI 302. Offered winter semester.
This course examines the decision-making processes to cope with modern environmental problems. The course focuses on both domestic and international environmental issues with special attention to interests, ideas, and institutions. Part of the Sustainability Issue. Cross-listed with PLS 303. Offered winter semester. Prerequisite: Junior standing.
Spring/Summer 2025 - Online
Introduces methods of sustainability assessment and reporting. The course reviews the goals of sustainability initiatives in different types of organizations and considers how assessment and reporting best practices are determined by type of organization and its sustainability goals. Sustainability professionals present on their use of assessment and reporting frameworks. Prerequisite: ENS 201.
Winter 2025 - Hybrid
This course explores the centuries-old relationship between humans, nature, and honeybees from a cultural, historical, and agricultural context. Pillars of our modern food system and bioindicator of our environment, honeybees provide important scientific, economic, philosophical, and political perspectives relevant to our current global climate. Offered fall semester.
Spring/Summer 2025 - Hybrid
Readings, lectures, and/or discussions in specific topics not normally covered by other courses in the program.
Winter 2025 - Hybrid Spring/Summer 2025 - Hybrid
Students will study sustainable agricultural ideas and techniques through applied activities. Students will investigate models of sustainable food systems that link production to cultural, political, economic, and environmental systems. Part of the Sustainability Issue. Offered fall semester. Prerequisite: Junior standing.
A problem-solving seminar in environmental studies. Attention will be given to vulnerabilities to environmental change, sustainable development, impact and risk assessment, and adaptations to and mitigation of environmental problems at various scales. Multidisciplinary student teams will conduct original research and design sustainable practices and solutions for real-life environmental problems. Offered fall and winter semesters. Prerequisites: ENS 201 and junior standing.
This course introduces students to natural and human causes of climate change and geographic patterns of climate change impacts, human vulnerabilities, and adaptation and mitigation strategies. Global climate modeling scenarios are examined in the context of international and national climate change policies, national security, climate preparedness, and resiliency planning. Part of the Sustainability Issue. Cross-listed with GPY 412. Offered winter semester. Prerequisites: Junior standing, and either GPY 100 or ENS 201 or at least one course from Foundations - Natural Sciences.
Winter 2025 - Online Spring/Summer 2025 - Online
