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Sustainability Certificate
Old Curriculum
The sustainability certificate can be added to any undergraduate major except environmental studies. Students who earn a sustainability certificate may not earn the environmental studies certificate or the certificate in engineering for energy sustainability. Students must meet a 2.8 GPA admission requirement.
Requirement for completion
- A 2.00 GPA in the certificate
- 12 credits of coursework, including the capstone, drawn from the list below
- A sustainability-related community service project (see link to left)
- Courses taken on a pass/fail basis will not count toward the certificate
Courses
The curriculum noted below is an option for students who have been admitted to the certificate prior to September 1, 2018. Please check the timetable for the latest course offerings. The course list below is dynamic and will be adjusted as new sustainability courses are being offered and others dropped. Students may request to substitute a listed course with a sustainability related course that is currently not listed. Such a request requires that the student submits a written explanation how the substitute course meets the learning outcomes of the certificate (listed further below) and assists the student in reaching his or her individual goals for taking the certificate. Please also submit a syllabus of the substitute class. The substitute request requires approval by the certificate's faculty advisor, Ann Terlaak.
| Department | Course | Title | Credits | geBLC* | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENVIR ST | 101 | Forum on the Environment | 2 | __WEC | Spring |
| Atm Ocn/Geosci | 102 | Climate and Climate Change | 3 | __PEC | Summer |
| GEO SCIENCE/ENV STU | 106 | Environmental Geology (Fall) Environmental Geology (Spring) |
3 | __PEC | Fall, Spring |
| INTER L&S | 107 | Building a Clean Energy Future | 3 | __WEC | Spring |
| ENVIR ST | 112 | Environmental Studies: The Social Perspective | 3 | __SEC | Spring |
| ENVIR ST | 117 | GreenHouse Roots Seminar | 1 | __EC | Fall |
| GEOG/IES | 120 | Introduction to the Earth System | 3 | __PEC | Spring |
| ENVIR ST | 126 | Principles of Environmental Science | 4 | __PEC | Spring |
| GEOG/ENVIR ST | 127 | Physical Systems of the Environment | |||
| ENVIR ST, GEOG | 139 | Living in the Global Environment: An Introduction to People-Environment Geography | 3 | __SEC | Fall, Spring |
| EPS | 150 | Climate Change and Sustainability Education | 3 | __SEC | Spring |
| AOS/IES | 171 | Global Change: Atmospheric Issues and Problems | 3 | B_PEC | Fall |
| Env St | 210 | Cultures of Sustainability: Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe | 3 | __HEC | Fall |
| AAE | 244 | The Environment and the Global Economy | 3 | Fall | |
| AAE | 246 | Climate Change Economics and Policy | 3 | __SEC | Fall |
| C&E SOC | 248 | Environment, Natural Resources, and Society | 3 | __SEC | |
| ILS | 251 | Radioactivity, People, and the Planet | 3 | __PIC | Spring |
| HORT | 261 | Sustainable Turfgrass use and Management | 2 | Spring | |
| ENVIR ST, GEOG | 309 | People, Land and Food | 3 | __SIC | Fall |
| ENVIR ST, BUSINESS MHR | 310 | Challenges and Solutions in Business Sustainability | 3 | ___IC | Spring |
| GEOG/ENVIR ST | 337 | Nature, Power and Society | 3 | ___IC | Fall, Spring |
| GEOG/AOS/IES | 332 | Climate Change: Science and Impacts | 3 | __PIC | Fall, Spring |
| ENVIR ST | 343 | Environmental Economics | 3 | __SIC | Fall |
| ENVIR ST | 349 | Climate Change Governance | 3 | __SIC | Spring |
| CONSUMER SCI | 360 | Sustainable and Socially Just Consumption | 3 | __SEC | Fall, Spring |
| ENVIR ST, BSE | 367 | Renewable Energy Systems | 3 | Fall, Spring | |
| BUSINESS OTM | 370 | Sustainable Approaches to System Improvement | 3 | Summer | |
| CIVIL SOC & COMM ST | 375 | Human Ecology of Food and Sustainability | 3 | Spring | |
| HORT | 375, LEC 001 | A Growing Dilemma: The Future of Food | 3 | Spring | |
| ENVIR ST | 402 | GreenHouse seminar (for residents of Leopold Hall) | 1** | __SIC | Fall, Spring |
| ENVIR ST & GEOG | 402/475 | Green Urbanism | Spring | ||
| C&I/C&E Soc/Envir St | 405 | Education for Sustainable Communities | 3 | __SIC | Spring |
| CIVENGR | 421 | Environmental Sustainability Engineering | 3 | ||
| GEOG | 439 | US Environmental Policy and Regulation | __SIC | ||
| PHIL/ENVIR ST | 441 | Environmental Ethics | 4 | __ZAC | Fall |
| Inter-Ag | 471 | Food Production System and Sustainability | 3 | __BAC | Spring |
| DY Science | 472 | Animal Agriculture and Global Sustainable Development | 1 | Spring | |
| CIV ENGR | 494 | Civil and Environmental Engineering Decision Making | 3 | Spring | |
| SOC | 540 | Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability | 3 | __SIC | Spring |
| C&E SOC | 541 | Environmental Stewardship and Social Justice Special Topic: The Global Perspective | 3 | __SAC | Spring |
| RMI | 650 | Sustainability, Environmental, and Social Risk Management | 3 | Fall | |
| See our Fall 2019 Capstone courses | |||||
*Refer to this page for information on the symbols in the geBLC column.
** 1 credit maximum of ENVIR ST 402 in the residence halls.
Learning Outcomes
Learning outcomes for students completing the sustainability certificate include the ability to:
- Set sustainability-related goals and develop strategies to implement these goals.
- Be able to use and apply concepts related to sustainability:
- Life cycle thinking
- Long term thinking, e.g., "Shifting baselines"
- Sustainability frameworks, e.g., "triple bottom line"
- Embodied resources including energy and water
- Natural capital and biodiversity
- Multiple-stakeholder thinking capstone
- Climate change concepts
- Link events in time and space to perceive the connections among them
- Analyze human decisions on the basis of their impacts on natural ecosystems
- Apply energy, resource, demand and technology knowledge to value generation and use
- Describe and interpret sustainability issues from local, regional and global perspectives
- Give examples of how public policy influences decisions
- Understand climate change, adaptation and mitigation to extent necessary to support analyses, design and policy decisions