Grand Valley State University
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

Institution level learning outcomes include:
1. Students will apply sustainability best practices to their everyday lives.
2. Students will be connected to useful resources and information in order to engage in sustainability education and opportunities during their time at GVSU.

Division level learning outcomes include:
1. Students are able to appropriately complete courses necessary to meet the general education requirements (see below).

The general education requirements include a sustainability issue. Its learning outcomes include:
1. Explain how complementary and competing perspectives contribute to the ongoing discussion about sustainability.
2. Collaboration: Effectively work on a team.
3. Problem solving: Design and evaluate an approach to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.
4. Integration: Synthesize and apply knowledge from experiences and multiple fields of study.

Natural Resources Management:
1. Students will effectively communicate, in written form, scientific observations, analyses, and arguments in a format typically required by natural resources management professionals in their fields.
2. Students will effectively communicate, in oral form, scientific observations, analyses, and arguments in a format typically required by natural resources management professionals in their fields.
3. Students will understand ecological concepts and principles including the structure and function of ecosystems, plant and animal communities, competition, diversity, population dynamics, succession, disturbance, and nutrient cycling.
4. Students will be able to identify, measure, and map land areas, and conduct spatial analyses.
5. Students will be able to evaluate and understand the economic, ecological, and social trade-offs of alternative land uses and ecosystem management decisions at local, regional, and global scales.
6. Students will demonstrate proficiency in concepts and principles related to resource management.

Geography & Sustainable Planning:
1. Students will demonstrate an understanding of the impact of natural conditions on human activities, on the one hand, and the different ways of creating environments according to differing cultural values, religious beliefs, technical, economic and political systems, on the other.
2. Students will demonstrate ability to work interculturally with community partners and at the local, regional, national or international level.
3. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the core concepts and principles in geospatial technologies.
4. Students will demonstrate mastery of spatial analysis techniques and procedures.
5. Students will be able to access, research, critically analyze, integrate, interpret, and communicate to professional audiences scientific data on environmental and development issues across the globe using geographic theory and techniques.
6. Students will develop cooperative strategies, analytical and problem-solving skills for appropriate actions to balance considerations of ecological integrity, geopolitical and cultural context, and economic development needs.
7. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the historical evolution of urban planning including key thinkers and planning paradigms.
8. Students will demonstrate mastery of best practices in urban design.

Environmental & Sustainability Studies:
1. Students will describe the impacts of sustainable food systems on society and the environment.
2. Students will apply practical gardening, recycling, and composting skills to projects at the GVSU Sustainable Agriculture Project campus farm site.
3. Students will explain the factors that define community food needs.
4. Students will analyze varying food advocacy efforts (production, distribution, environmental stewardship, and others) to distinguish between effective and ineffective techniques.
5. Students will adapt food safety best practices in food production, manufacturing and preparation to different situational contexts, such as: agriculture, food recovery projects, and commercial and/or charitable food distribution sites.

Biology:
1. Students in the Ecology and Evolution emphasis of the Biology major will demonstrate MASTERY of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology content knowledge.

Chemistry:
1. Students will demonstrate basic knowledge of the concepts of green chemistry
2. Students will demonstrate the ability to utilize their knowledge of green chemistry in their future career.

Public and Nonprofit Administration (Community Development and Planning field): Students will have the ability to identify:
1. The interrelationships among major community actors
2. The processes and power structures which create community governance
3. The policies and institutions that foster strong, vibrant communities
4. The relationship between a community's physical and social infrastructure
5. The organizational challenges that face neighborhood associations and community development corporations