Course Offerings
The Sustainability major and minor are highly interdisciplinary. As such, courses for the Sustainability program are offered from a variety of departments.
Fall 2013 Sustainability Course Offerings
- SUST 201 – Sustainability and Society
This course will examine what is meant by the term sustainability and will assess how sustainability can be used as a framework to address complex societal issues including our food systems, social justice, and sustainable development.
- SUST 492 – Sustaining the Human Food Supply
This course investigates the impact of agricultural production practices and dietary choices on the environment, human welfare, and the quantity and quality of food produced. Attention is given to the roles that individual choice, governmental policy, and corporations have on food systems from local to global scales.
- SUST 492/ANTH 490 – The Holocene
This course focuses on the perspectives, methods, and data that archaeology and sustainability fields can bring to discussions of climate variation. We will consider the importance of paleoenvironmental data to archaeological research, the ways in which it can be used, and the various methods of recovering and analyzing such data to reconstruct human- environment interactions in the Holocene, our current epoch.
- SUST 494 – Sustainability Internship
- SUST 496 – Sustainability Field Experience
- SUST 498 – Sustainability Undergraduate Research
- BIOL 310 – Environmental Science
A lecture discussion course dealing with human impact on the environment and on the use and misuses of our renewable and non-renewable resources, including air, water, soil and living organisms. Discussion of pertinent literature dealing with humans as a member of an ecological system.
- BIOL 311/BIOL 311L – Principles of Ecology
Basic principles of ecology including the sub disciplines of physiological ecology, population ecology, community ecology, evolutionary ecology, and ecosystems ecology from both a theoretical and applied aspect.
- BIOL 412/BIOL 412L – Freshwater Ecology
The physical, chemical, and biological conditions of freshwaters as environments for plant and animal communities.
- BIOL 442/ESCI 442 – Introduction to River Studies
This interdisciplinary course covers the geography, use of, and modifications to large rivers in the United States. Special emphasis is placed on the Missouri River, including geology, ecology, water law, and cultural resources. Multiple field trips are conducted on the Missouri River to enhance student understanding of the river's ecosystem and natural processes.
- CHEM 326/CHEM 326L – Organic Chemistry
A systematic treatment of the chemistry of carbon compounds, including nomenclature, structure-reactivity relationships, reaction mechanisms, synthesis, and spectroscopy.
- ESCI 360 – Global Climate Change
The roles that greenhouse gases, atmosphere-ocean interactions, orbital cycles, plate tectonics, humans, and other factors have played in climate change on Earth from its origin to the present and what will influence climate change in the future.
- MCOM 243 – Public Relations Principles
An introduction to the theory and practice of public relations, emphasizing its publics, management function, writing skills, communication processes, tools and professional ethics.
- SPCM 422 – Persuasion
- Develops conceptual understanding of persuasion dynamics by analyzing theories, perspectives, and research findings while improving skills in critically analyzing the role of persuasive message in society and culture.