Courses and Materials

Part of the InTeGrate Savannah State University Program Model

Courses and teaching materials adopted, adapted, or developed by the project.

Courses

Environmental Issues (Marine and Environmental Sciences)

Instructor(s): Sue Ebanks, Brigette Brinton, Jolvan Morris, Shawn Rosenquist
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Summer 2016, Fall 2016
Course Level: Introductory

Course description: This course is a survey of global environmental issues facing humankind from philosophical, sociological, historical, ecological, and technological perspectives. Because the course was taught by multiple faculty and staff members of varying degrees of interaction with the InTeGrate materials, each offering within and among semesters was different. However, the focus of this overall project was on coastal hazards and risks and thus each offering utilized the Coastal Hazards: Hurricanes module, in part or in whole. In several offerings student activities included a modified version of the Hazards vs Risk parachuting over a volcano sheet to launch a discussion on what is perceived versus actual for both hazards and risks. Additionally, they completed the Map Your Hazards: Hurricane assignment that was modified in various ways including a comparison of secondary hazards associated with hurricanes in various parts of the country and the communication and business implications of impacts to those different regions.

Global Supply Chain Management (Global Logistics and International Business)

Instructor: Amit Arora
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2016
Course Level: Upper Division
Course description: This course (GLIB 3190) is part of the Global Logistics and International Business major at SSU. The major at College of Business Administration (COBA) was offered starting Fall 2013. GLIB 3190 is a new course offered for the first time in a regular semester in Fall 2016. It introduces students to key concepts in supply chain management and helps them develop an understanding of the strategic importance of sourcing in improving a firm's competitive position. Challenges in managing the relationships among businesses involved in the process of buying and selling products and services are explored. This course explores the key issues associated with the design and management of supply chain (SC). SC is concerned with the efficient integration of suppliers, factories, warehouses, and stores so that products are distributed to customers in the right quantity and at the right time. One of the primary objectives of SC management is to minimize the total supply chain cost subject to various service requirements. For this course, the Humans' Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources InTeGrate module was used. Rare earth elements are an important part of electronic industry supply chain. The complex—and often polluting—middle steps that turn mined material into useful ingredients, including metals and magnets, are important source of supply to manufacture electronic devices. This module is helpful to business students in order to understand the criticality of sourcing decisions in a supply chain.

Other materials were used to supplement the module including a Wall Street Journal article: "China Still Dominates Rare-Earth Processing" dated December 5, 2013 and a Wall Street Journal video: How China Rules the Rare-Earths Market

Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (Homeland Security and Emergency Management)

Instructor: Terri Clay
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2016
Course Level: Upper Division

Course description: Students taking this course learn to identify hazards, risks, and vulnerability assessment across all types of hazards. The course provides instruction in analytical techniques and methodologies for threat and vulnerability assessment for public and private entities. It uses an all-hazards approach to assessing risk, addressing natural, human-caused, technological hazards, and includes cyber and critical infastructure threats. Using the Coastal Hazards: Hurricanes module, Earth Science information and concepts were more readily available for infusion into those relevant sections of the course.

Marine Sediments (Marine and Environmental Sciences)

Instructor: Carol Pride
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2016
Course Level: Upper Division

Course description: In this course (MSCI 4401K), students learn concepts of sedimentology, stratigraphy, and paleoceanography in a regional context by exploring sedimentary environments along a transect from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The course was developed as part of an NSF grant to increase engagement of HBCU students in geological oceanography and enhance their exposure to the International Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and research relevant to IODP. It was first offered in 2008 and is taught roughly every other year. Although no InTeGrate materials were directly incorporated into the fall 2016 offering of this class, the projects in the course were more relevant to societal concerns than ever before in this particular offering of the class. The students completed one exploratory assignment regarding a proposed groin installation and beach renourishment project on Sea Island, GA. The proposed site is on the southern end of the island which is already highly impacted by a large groin and has undergone erosion and retreat for years. This semester was particularly suited for incorporation of coastal hazards topics into the course due to the influence of Hurricane Matthew. The class completed a field and laboratory research project and report exploring the impact of an ongoing renourishment project on beach profiles and sediment properties of Coligny Beach on Hilton Head Island, SC (Figs. 1 and 2). They were able to study not just the influence of the engineering, but also the impact of the storm and consider the monetary losses of this coastal tourism-based community. Although not part of the class, the students also directly felt the impacts of the storm due to campus closures, a cancelled project, evacuations, storm damage, and ongoing debris removal in the Savannah area. We had set up a study of salt marsh accretion rates (Fig. 3) to compare with the local rate of sea level rise, but the students were unable to complete the project due to storm and campus closures. The course ended by learning about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, examining a core replica of this event and allowing the students to draw connections to ongoing greenhouse warming and implications for the ocean. Human impacts on the marine environment, as well as impacts of the ocean, weather and climate on society will continue to be incorporated into the SSU Marine Sediments class in the future.

Fig. 1. Beach profiles produced by the Savannah State University Marine Sediments class using the Emery Board method on Coligny Beach, Hilton Head Island, SC. Profiling was conducted before and after Hurricane Matthew.

Fig. 2. SSU Marine Sediments students walking alongside the pipe feeding a slurry of sand and seawater to the active renourishment site on Coligny Beach, Hilton Head Island, SC. They completed beach profiling surveys and collected sediment samples in both renourished and non-renourished sites.

Fig. 3. SSU Marine Sediments students balancing themselves as they transit through the salt marsh to measure Spartina alterniflora density and establish transects for a marsh accretion study.

Teaching Materials

Modules Adopted

Modules Adapted

See individual course descriptions at left for details on how the modules were adapted in each case.

Natural Hazards and Risk: Hurricanes

Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts