Overview
Examines the relationship between development and environmental change by introducing social science perspectives on themes including energy, agriculture, climate, urbanization, and water. With a focus on combining macro- and micro-analysis, the course reflects on the meaning of development in an era of global environmental transformation.
Learning Outcomes
After successfully completing this course, students will be able to
- Identify areas of tension between key development goals and environmental challenges in the 21st century.
- Address sustainability challenges in the fields of energy, climate, forests, water, agriculture, air pollution, biodiversity and urbanization.
- Apply different social science perspectives to explain the causes and outcomes of environmental change across a diverse range of case studies.
- Analyze why using different perspectives creates diverging explanations of environmental change that lead towards different political solutions.
- Engage with different types of texts: academic papers, scientific reports, government documents and journalistic articles