Visions of Nature

Catalog description

An interdisciplinary introduction to environmental studies, including perspectives from environmental ethics, economics, public policy, art, literature, history, geology, biology, and ecology. This course may be team-taught and include field and laboratory work. Students will be introduced to interdisciplinary study of the environment with an overview of nature's role as subject matter in a variety of academic disciplines. Students will examine the formative value of nature in our cultural history, consider the role of nature in our current value systems and social and economic structure, and be introduced to the theory and practice of ecological science. Students should achieve a broad understanding of the value (not just economic) of living things and their habitats. The course will demonstrate how information from different fields can interconnect. It also serves as the "gateway" course for students intending to major or minor in an interdisciplinary environmental studies program, introducing the program's concerns, aims, and goals and the varied academic perspectives to be built upon in later coursework.