Sustainability Studies
Undergraduate Certificate Program
Courses
Grades: All courses taken for certificate credit must be passed with a grade of C or higher.
Online Courses for Summer 2009:
SUS 211
Principles of Sustainability
Fundamental principles of Sustainability. Goal is to provide a larger context for topics covered in sustainability courses. Topics covered include: What is Sustainability?, Climate Change and Environmental Challenges, systems Thinking/Systems Analysis, "Natural" Systems and Function, Human Interactions with Natural Systems, Ethics, and Values.
SUS 235
Environmental Policy
An overview of environmental policy at the local, regional, and national level. Focus will be placed on the"incentive-based" approach to environmental regulation. There will be he opportunity to analyze a "real-life" environmental issue affecting the local region.
SUS 250
Special Studies in Sustainability: Readings in Sustainability
A mosaic approach to understanding "sustainability." Readings will cover a wide variety of issues and genres, from historical accounts to scientific studies to technical reports and more. Some of the texts will be overtly controversial; some implicitly so. All should stir your thinking about what sustainability means, and could mean.
SUS 250
Special Studies in Sustainability: Sustainable Living
An introduction to diverse global perspectives and practical personal solutions related to environmental, economic and social sustainability. The course presents a historical, ethical and technical review of the impact that our daily decisions make on the global condition. Most important, however, we learn to make decisions on a daily basis related to energy, food, land use, water and air, waste, housing, personal health, and community.
MTH 120
Quantitative Reasoning
Fundamentals of quantitative literacy including inductive-deductive reasoning, paradoxes, and problem-solving strategies. Numeracy including estimation, scaling, uncertainty, and infinity will be discussed. Rate of change, linear and exponential models will be explored. Applications of quantitative reasoning to the social sciences will be emphasized. The summer 2009 offering will include application of quantitative reasoning to issues in sustainability.
Online programs and courses are offered by the Departments and Colleges of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, in collaboration with the Division of Professional and Continuing Education and UMass Online.
