ENVR 350 | Puget Sound Environmental Issues Part I: Politics and Public Participation

This course familiarizes students with the variety of ways citizens engage in public decision making on environmental issues central to the health of Puget Sound. The course combines nearly 24 hours of class and field experience over the course of a single weekend (Friday evening to Sunday evening) with additional meeting hours during three weeknight meetings. Students study a single regional watershed from source to mouth, gaining an understanding of the role citizens play in shaping the environmental policy of a particular place. The class employs written case materials developed to highlight particularly successful examples of citizen engagement in environmental policy in the watershed, mini-lectures by academic experts on the relevant political and environmental contexts of the cases, discussion panels with key stakeholders and decision makers on these issues, and field experiences designed to reveal the applied context of the issues under consideration. A select number of local community members may participate in the class on a non-credit basis.