2023-2024 Academic Catalog

Dec 22, 2024

2023-2024 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GEOG 245 - Problems & Practices in Environmental Stewardship

This course focuses on concepts, challenges and practices surrounding the stewardship of natural resources and landscapes globally and locally, using Worcester and central Massachusetts as a natural laboratory. Across urban, rural, woodland and wildland regions, land stewardship and sustainability efforts target the protection of a large range of ecosystem services. Course includes field trips.

We will draw on foundational and contemporary geographic and interdisciplinary readings in environmental stewardship and earth system governance, exploring issues of social representation, meaning, participation, access, and exclusion in nature. To ground these academic insights in place, we will collaborate with local conservation institutions and conduct site-based work. We will learn, understand and engage with specific stewardship strategies and histories in response to environmental challenges in our local communities, including policies, programs, regulations, and civic engagement, and how they can address goals related to building greater diversity, equity and inclusion.

Prerequisites: A 100- or 200- level course in Human Environment Geography (e.g.,GEOG 017 GEOG 106 GEOG 118 GEOG 220 GEOG 225 GEOG 259 GEOG 280 )

Course Designation/Attribute: POP, DI

Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually