ENV 295 - Special Topics in Environmental Studies

Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Offered when interest is expressed and departmental resources permit.

Prerequisites: ENV 110 and permission of the instructor.This courses examines special topics in environmental studies, such as ecotourism, the environment and development, local environmental issues, values and the environment, global fisheries, global climate change, tropical deforestation and similar topics of importance, which could change from year to year. This is a research-intensive course where the student would be expected to write a significant paper, either individually or as part of a group, of sufficient quality to be made useful to the scholarly and policy communities. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.

Topic in Fall 2010:

ENV 295: Campus Sustainability: Conducting an Assessment at W&L (3). Institutions of higher education throughout the world are turning their attention to sustainability on their own campuses and in their educational practices. Through a combination of readings and action research, this course investigates what campus sustainability means, including both biophysical and curricular aspects. Students conduct a campus sustainability assessment of Washington and Lee University. Sustainability is one of the president’s key initiatives, and this assessment contributes to the development of sustainability policy and practice at W&L. Henry-Stone.