Development of a Syllabus for Environmental Issues course

Syed Hasan

University of Missouri-Kansas City

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection. (view details)

This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are

Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
Pedagogic Effectiveness
Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page

For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.

Initial Publication Date: April 18, 2006 | Reviewed: January 17, 2015 (see revision history: 2 events)

Summary

Students' participation in developing syllabus for a new course "Issues in Environmental Science." Details are included in the document.

Global Policy, US National Policy, Environmental Decision-Making, ...(more) | College Lower (13-14) | Public Policy and STEM

Expand for more detail and links to related resources

Topics

Global Policy, US National Policy, Environmental Decision-Making, Environmental Science

Grade Level

College Lower (13-14)

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice

Public Policy and STEM: STEM disciplines can strengthen data-based decision making in the public sphere.

Follow the links above to find more resources from Teach the Earth on a specific topic.

Share your modifications and improvements to this activity through the Community Contribution Tool »

Context

Audience

This is a 200 level required course for environmental science/studies majors

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Students must have already completed an introductory course titled "Understanding the Earth" (EnSc 110)

How the activity is situated in the course

Semester long

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

Engage students in determining course syllabus

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Research papers require separating facts from opinions; critical analyses of information and data

Other skills goals for this activity

Training in writing scientific papers

Description of the activity/assignment

We introduced a new required course "EnSc 210: Issues in Environmental Science" for our majors about three years ago. When I was assigned to teach this course for the first time, I struggled with developing a syllabus and recommending a text for the course. Since we also offer classes in "Environmental Geology" and an introductory course "EnSc 110 Understanding the Earth," the challenge was to avoid duplication while developing an appropriate syllabus. What I finally decided to do was to have students provide ideas. So, on the first day of class I announced that we don't have a syllabus for this course (many sighs of disappointment) and, after a brief remark on some current environmental issues, invited each student to suggest at least one topic for inclusion in the course. After some hesitation (as expected) hands went up and I began writing each topic on the white board. Pretty soon we had 20-25 topics with some overlapping themes. Some of these included: population problem, global climate change, air and water pollution, waste management, environmental health, species decline, environmental impact of large dams, and sustainability. After some discussions about relative importance of various topics and the time available to cover each during the semester, we narrowed it down to about 10 topics for detailed study. I prepared my syllabus (linked below) based on this list which worked very well because: we were able to include key topics and, very importantly, students felt a sense of 'ownership' which led to a very interesting and interactive class experience throughout the semester.