Course overview
This course provides students with an interdisciplinary approach to understand and critically evaluate
environmental problems and issues, with particular reference to climate change. It uses both a local and global
scale to examine relationships between society and our environment. The course aims to promote a sense of personal responsibility towards the attainment of just and sustainable societies and to develop critical thinking skills to assist in this process. The concept of sustainability, the role of society in environmental problems and their solutions, conservation psychology, implications of climate change on a local and global scale, circular economies, ecological economics.
Course learning outcomes
- Understand key factors affecting society's approach to addressing key environmental challenges (e.g. climate change) and opportunities (e.g. circular economies).
- Reflect on the role of culture, education, media and publicity in relation to its influence on environmental behaviours.
- Relate basic principles of social science, psychology and communication science to specific environmental problems such as sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity protection.
- Evaluate the importance of social, political, and economic systems to environmental problems and their solutions.
- Prepare a strategy that proposes appropriate techniques to facilitate an environmental behaviour change.
- Reflect on personal environmental values and attitudes and the actions that could contribute to sustainability, as well as the associated barriers.
- Apply the principles of critical thinking to analyse environmental issues and viewpoints.