All Current and Past Sustainability Courses

Click here for a list of current courses.

ANT 420 - Senior Seminar: Dealing with Disaster
3 Credits for class only/ 4 Credits for class plus service - learning trip to New Orleans during Spring Break
This course will introduce students to critical perspectives on disasters, and provide opportunities for them to apply their own knowledge through service learning and community - based or action research. The guiding premises are that all disasters are social and cultural events, and that critical situations often demand that scholars intervene - through engaged research, advocacy and even activism.

DES 300 - Designing for Environment
3 Credits
This is a team - based, interdisciplinary workshop for Junior and Senior students in Design, Marketing, and Sustainability Studies. It focuses on developing meaningful and sustainable solutions, for real, community - based projects. It incorporates Professional Practice, Experiential Learning, and Service Learning experiences.

IST 444 - Sustainable Living
3 Credits
Learn to live more lightly on the planet. An introduction to global challenges and practical solutions related to energy, food, land use, water and air, waste, housing, and community health. This class will help students make personal and professional decisions supporting the three interconnected objectives of sustainability; economic vitality, environmental integrity, and social equity

MAR 545 Stock Assessment of Fishery Resources
3 Credits; Pre - req: MAR 540
The course shows how stock assessment informs fishery management decisions and influences socioeconomics of the fishing industry. A wide range of conventional stock assessment methods are introduced, as well as several advanced topics such as multispecies assessments, ecosystem considerations, spatial structure and risk analysis.

MAR 690 Green Business: Principles and Practice of Sustainable Business
3 Credits
Sustainability is the study and application of knowledge about how individuals and/or institutions direct the course of an organization or community in ways that restore and enhance human, natural, manufactured, and financial capital to generate stakeholder value and contribute to the well-being of current and future generations. Students in this course on Sustainable Business will review its concepts and principles, develop appropriate managerial measures and undertake a facilitated practicum. Class time will be largely spent in lecture, discussion, case studies and experiential exercises. The practicum will enable students to apply learnings from the theoretical literature to a real situation.

MGT 312 - 02/11050 - Legal Framework Business
3 Credits; Pre - req: CCB Standing, CCB Major
Provides students with an overview of the legal environment of business. Topics covered include areas such as contract, tort and criminal law as well as constitutional law, intellectual property law and employment law. Students will develop a general background in the major areas to the law as it affects the daily business environment.

MGT 690 - Innovation and Creativity in Sustainable Management
3 Credits
Innovation and Creativity are the sparks that make good companies great. Sustainability is the disciplined creation of long term inter-generational prosperity through the enhancement of human, natural, manufactured, and financial capital. Combined they encourage a style of behavior comfortable with challenges, new ideas and constant change. This course provides an opportunity for students to integrate Sustainable Business Modeling tools together with creative problem solving techniques. Class time will be spent in lecture, discussion, case studies, experiential exercises and practical workshops. In addition the group auditing project will enable students to apply theoretical learning's to a real organization or community situation.

MTX 110 - Environmental Science and Business
3 Credits
This course provides a substantial treatment of the physical science and environmental issues business leaders should understand when conducting present and future industrial operations. The fundamentals of physical and material science will be covered; topics associated with the interpretation of environmental issues such as operational air quality, water quality, solid/liquid hazardous waste disposal, work place hygiene and in plant noise pollution will be treated. The remediation technology used to manage these environmental issues will also be discussed. Environmental science topics will be presented in the context of the chemistry and physics of the environment, the rules and regulations industry has to follow in fulfilling their responsibility of protecting the environment and the way in which environmental factors may lead to disease.

MTH 120 - Quantitative Reasoning
3 Credits - Applies to certificate program only
Fundamentals of quantitative literacy fully integrated with environmental science topics to illustrate how mathematics is used to describe, model, and analyze data. This will be an introductory level course in applied mathematics. Topics include essential numeracy including estimation, measurement and scaling, and function modeling, which explores the three most important functions used in analyzing and modeling environmental data. Elementary statistics are explored with many practical examples to help students develop an intuitive understanding of descriptive statistics, sampling, and probability based inferential statistics.

PSC/SUS 347 - Environmental Law
3 Credits (online)
Environmental Law explores the foundation of legal principles that apply to U.S. environmental laws. Students will learn the basic premises of environmental law, and then apply these premises to current environmental issues. The goal is to expose students to a broad understanding of the scientific and socio-economic elements that go into environmental regulations. Current environmental issues, such as climate change, will be discussed. The course is meant as an introduction into environmental law.

PHY 162 - Science, Tech & Soc: Environ II
3 Credits, E, S, G
This course studies current environmental issues and their relations to technological choices. For example, air and water quality are examined in relation to the use of various renewable and non-renewable energy resources. The course is non-mathematical and satisfies 3 credits of the Natural Science requirement.

PHY 171 - Earth Science I
3 Credits
Description - An introduction to the fundamentals of earth sciences for the non-science major. Using descriptive instructional techniques, topics introduced will include the origins and history of the earth, plate tectonics, igneous activity, regional glacial history, the geologic time scale, and the origins of life. Students will also engage in weekly laboratory exercises that will produce data and information related to sustainability issues.

PHY 172 - Planet Earth II
3 Credits
A continuation of the Planet Earth sequence. Semester topics include weathering, mass wasting, erosion, groundwater, dug and artesian wells, effects of running water, the hydrologic cycle, mountain types and origins, structure of the ocean floor, plate tectonics, coral reefs and atolls, shoreline features, coastline development, and characteristics of metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous rocks.

PHY 183 - Intro Global Climate Chg
3 credits
Description - What we know about global climate change and how to understand it, and with what certainty we know it, aimed to meet the increasing need for citizens of the world to be scientifically literate about this issue. Using basic physical principles, this course concentrates on the science of climate change and its relationship to a sustainable world.

PSC 235 - Environmental Policy<br /> 3 Credits
Environmental Policy will explore the decision making process that underlies most of our current environmental laws and regulations in the U.S. Students will learn about the process of environmental decision-making from an "incentive-based" approach and alternatives analysis. Topics such as air, water, hazardous substances, climate change, and environmental justice will be discussed. Students will interpret a current proposal to use charge systems to implement environmental policies. The course is meant as an introductory theme into environmental policy. There is no course pre-requisite.

PSC 348 - Ocean Policy and Law (Staff)
3 credits
Description - Laws and policies associated with marine resource management. The declining status and productivity of many of our marine resources has led to growing concern about human activities such as pollution, overfishing, and environmental degradation. The course explores the fundamentals of policy analysis in order to gain insights into issues including jurisdiction, harvest regulation, ecosystem approaches, and environmental protection.

PSC 400-12863-02 - Seminar in American Politics & Ideas
3 Credits
Pre PSC 101 and Upper Division Standing
Students will learn about how state and local governments make policy and how to analyze the outcomes of those policy making decisions. In addition, students will complete an applied policy analysis for the town of Dartmouth. They will read about sustainable practices in local government and survey other Massachusetts communities about sustainability initiatives that are underway. Based on their readings and research, they will make recommendations to the town of Dartmouth about what initiatives the town might pursue to make local government operations more sustainable.

PST 650 - Sustainability Education and Public Policy: Connecting for Change
3 Credits

This three-credit interdisciplinary course is designed to give candidates for the Master of Public Policy degree an understanding of how institutions such as schools, industries, businesses and local governments are reinventing themselves to meet the interrelated environmental, economic and ethical challenges we face in this era of crisis and change.

Assigned readings will focus on topics such as no-waste systems, renewable energy and industrial design; nature-based education, civic engagement and public health; biodiversity, cultural diversity and the arts. Emphasis will be on writing, critical thinking, and problem-solving through collaboration on projects that combine visionary ideas with practical strategies for living sustainable lives through the acquisition of 21st century skills.

SOC 381 - 01 - Social Impact of Science and Technologyy
3 Credits
What are the obligations of a scientist? What is the meaning of progress? What can and can not be quantified? Students whose primary interests lie in science and technology themselves have a need to consider the social, ethical, philosophical, and epistemological impact of their activities. The course provides students, from both arenas, with an understanding of the scientific and technological world - view, and allows students to reflect upon issues such as: value neutrality of tools, quantification of social and natural reality, the ownership of knowledge and information, knowledge as power, and technological development as progress. By examining some of the history, philosophy, and sociology of science and technology, the students can assess their role in government, business, and society.

SUS 201 - 01/17053 - Topics in Sustainability
3 Credits; no prereqs
This course changes from semester to semester. Click here to see the past selections.

SUS 211 - Principles of Sustainability (Required course for Certificate)
3 Credits
This course focuses on the fundamental principles of Sustainability, providing a larger context for the topics covered in the elective courses. Principle 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 250 - Readings in Sustainability (Pending Approval)
3 Credits
This course will take a mosaic approach to understanding "sustainability". We will read across a wide variety of genres, from mainstream essays, to scientific studies, to technical reports, and more. We will read non-controversial works, such as Rachel Carson's "The Edge of the Sea", as well as highly controversial works, such as "The Limits to Growth." We will look at sustainability from "the wilderness" to the city; from the history of garbage to the future of waste; from nature's destruction to nature's instruction. Students will be expected to read all texts and be able to contribute to an ongoing discussion of the texts, how they contribute to the notion of "sustainability," and what, in the end, sustainability may mean.

All Current and Past Sustainability Courses

Graduate Courses