Environmental Leaders ARC - Required Courses
UGST 112: Topics in the Environmental Leaders ARC
Class overview: Our urgent and complex environmental problems require interdisciplinary solutions from planners and designers, engineers and scientists, legal experts and policy makers, energy experts and farmers, inventors and entrepreneurs, artists and communicators, and those willing to advocate for social justice and the needs of non-human species. How will you make a difference?
- Fall quarter: When it comes to global climate change, we don’t have a data or science problem, we have a storytelling one. In this ARC's seminar we will read stories of a climate-changed world or “cli-fi” and investigate how those stories impact us and others. However, this will not be English class! Instead, the stories will be a launchpad for exploring visions of the future and we will use discussions and activities from human-centered design to dig deeper, explore implications, and envision alternatives. The seminar will also emphasize environmental and climate justice, recognizing the unequal impacts of climate change. For your final project your will bring it all together to co-create science fictional visions of the future we want to build.
- Winter quarter: More info coming soon!
In this ARC you will get to expand your abilities in critical thinking, climate change impacts and solutions, imagination, and creativity. While we will be authentic about the very real challenges we face with global warming, including the fear, grief, and anger that come with these challenges, we will ultimately focus on shaping a different story—one of solutions and productive transition to a just and sustainable world.
The Environmental Leaders ARC seminar is not a deep-dive into any single environmental topic but, rather, a chance for exploration, experimentation, reflection, and goal-setting around multiple ways to make a difference, at UO and beyond. This 4-credit hour course spans two quarters (2 credit hours in Fall, 2 in Winter) and counts for a social science core education credit. The course is taught by Sarah Stoeckl, a campus sustainability professional and literary and cultural studies scholar with training in human-centered design and engagement related to climate distress.
ENVS 203: Introduction to Environmental Studies—Humanities
Students in the Environmental Leaders ARC will also complete an introductory environmental studies course together in fall quarter. This gives you the opportunity to take classes with friends who have shared interests and lets you help one another throughout the term. The course is comprised of a large lecture and a smaller, weekly discussion section. Environmental Leaders ARC students will be together for both the lecture and the corresponding discussion section.
Description: The way we think about the environment changes our perceptions of it and our commitments to it. In this course, you'll engage the humanities' contribution to Environmental Studies, learning how literature, history, philosophy and art can help produce understandings of the natural world and humanity's ethical relationship to it. The course is required for Environmental Studies and Environmental Science majors and Environmental Leaders ARC participants. The course also fulfills basic general education requirements (Arts and Letters) at the University of Oregon, so you do not need to major or minor in Environmental Studies or Science to benefit.