Earlham College
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

Environmental Science (major and minor) Environmental Studies (major and minor) Biology (major and minor) Peace and Global Studies (major and minor w/ Environmental Studies focus) Outdoor Education (minor only)

Sustainability Learning Outcomes Inventory 2014 Environmental Studies Sustainability Learning Outcomes include: • Develop a critical understanding of environmental issues • Develop an understanding of systems and multi-perspective thinking • Examine environmental issues particularly through the lenses of justice, power, and ethics Environmental Science Sustainability Learning Outcomes include: • Ability to apply scientific thinking (i.e. the scientific method) to environmental problems, with understanding of the complexities and constraints human cultures and societies impose on solutions to those problems • Understanding of the complexity and inherent multidisciplinary nature of environmental issues • Ability to view life decisions through a ‘sustainability filter’, especially those involving transportation, food, and housing Biology Ecological Biology is a required course for the major and minor and includes the following learning goals: • Develop global awareness, including an understanding of the natural world as a context for humanity. We will focus on several sustainability issues, and how population and community ecology principles can be applied in problem solving • Heightened your awareness of one’s self and others as biological and ecological beings thereby engendering a sense of the responsibility that comes with that knowledge. Biological Diversity is a second course required for the major and minor and has the following learning outcomes: • Be able to interpret evolutionary relationships (phylogenies) • Be able to identify organisms to major taxonomic groupings, especially common local organisms • Be able to recognize “function” from “form” for an organisms’ anatomy and physiology • Be able to reconstruct the evolutionary history of major adaptations and syndromes. • Become aware of the conservation concern for various taxa, and how we can mitigate their decline Peace and Global Studies Global Dynamics and World Peace is a required course for the major and includes the following in its description and outcomes: Course Description: What does "peace" mean? Is sustainable peace possible? How can we contribute to peacebuilding? This course addresses these questions by examining current global dynamics, including violence, environmental destruction, and "globalization." The word "globalization," in turn, is used here as shorthand to refer to another set of dynamics present in the global system today, including poverty, efforts at poverty reduction, free trade agreements, and international migration flows. How best can we understand what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to as "the interrelated structure of reality?" Using a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses (including but not limited to history, sociology, political science, philosophy, and economics), we will look at different perspectives concerning the ways these dynamics are (or are not) related and what can be done to address the complex set of problems humanity faces today. Course Objectives: This course is primarily designed for sophomores who are majoring in Peace & Global Studies. …The objectives of this course are the same as one of the principal sets of objectives I have for PAGS majors generally. I want PAGS majors to be clear-eyed regarding the constraints that face liberation movements and postcolonial societies and to have an analysis of the source of those constraints. PAGS majors should have reasoned understandings of what constitutes peace and of what constitutes justice, an analysis of ways of moving toward greater justice and peace, and of the kinds of problems that arise in that movement.