Environmental Systems on a Changing Planet

Catalog description

This course introduces the interconnected environmental systems that regulate our climate and ecosystems, providing the resources required to sustain all life, including human societies. These systems are the fascinating connections between the oceans, atmosphere, continents, ecosystems, and people that provide our planet with resources that all life depends on. Human activities disrupt these natural systems, posing critical threats to the sustainable functioning of environmental systems. We will explore how solar and biochemical energy moves through the Earths interconnected systems, recycling nutrients; how complex environmental systems function to produce critical resources such as food and water; and how human activities interfere with these systems. Earth science concepts will be used to explain the relationship between climate zones and biomes, the stability of the Earth's climate in the Holocene, and the instability in the current Anthropocene. Case studies include the interplay between climate change feedbacks, wildfires, ecosystems, and agricultural systems; the hazards that everyday chemical toxins pose to ecosystems and human health and reproduction; and growing threats to ecosystem health and biodiversity. We will also develop the relevant science and information literacy required to understand current issues that are frequently debated in the public sphere, and connect these to environmental justice.