ENVR 200 | Introduction to the Environment

This is the required introductory course for the Environmental Policy and Decision Making minor/major, an interdisciplinary program designed to help students integrate their major area of study with an understanding of how individual and collective decisions interact with the environment. The course uses approaches from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to introduce the ways in which human social, political, economic, and cultural systems interact with systems in the non-human environment. The concept of "sustainability" is explored by considering the tension between the limiting principles in our world and competing human values over the question of what should be sustained for the future.