American Environmental Issues: Inventing the Future 4219-SF052
1. Thinking about nature; inventing nature;
2. Nature and society in indigenous communities.
3. An outline of US environmental history I. Colonial Encounters; New England wilderness Transformed, The Tobacco and Cotton South
4. Outline of US environmental history II. Nature and the market economy; nature and the urban
5. Outline of US Environmental History III Western frontiers, the plains and the Pacific coast
6. Conservation, preservation, american national parks - history, distribution, values
7. American national parks - contexts: nature protection and tourism; national parks and indigenous peoples, parks and the national imaginary
8. Nature and growth, development, energy, resources - environmental problems of the 20th century
9. Ecology, environmentalism, american environmental organizations and movements
10. Sustainability as a new public discourse - theory and practice of sustainability
11. Legal environmental regulations; EPA
12. Climate change and environmental challenges - examples of particularly vulnerable areas, challenges related to their management:
11.1 Sustainable cities? large agglomerations in the context of sustainable development
11.2 Coastal areas, Florida.
11.3. Dry and semi-dry areas (the Southwest)
11.4. Alaska
11.5. Hawaii
Main fields of studies for MISMaP
environmental protection
Type of course
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
- knowledge of the inter-dependability of the people and their natural environment and the social, economic and political systems that they created understands the concept of sustainability and its implications in the US (K_W04; KS1_W04, KS2_W04)
Skills
- ability to identify environmentally vulnerable areas of Americas and to describe the features that characterize them as well as the features of the people, who live there and manage them (K_U05; KS1_U05, KS2_U05)
- ability to notice the meaning and to analyze and critically interpret the environmental and spatial conditioning and consequences of social and economic processes undergoing in Americ (K_U05; KS1_U05, KS2_U05)
- ability to use thematic maps (K_U01; KS1_U01, KS2_U02)
Social competences:
- Openness to various phenomena and ideas; recognition of and respect for cultural difference (K_K01, KS1_K01, KS2_K01)
- ability to think spatially about environmental issues framing life and landscape in America.
- critical thinking skills concerning issues that affect people and places in the United States
Assessment criteria
active participation in classes 60%
team project (multimedia- enhanced essay) 40%
Bibliography
Hudson J.C., Across this land: a regional geography of the U.S and Canada 2002 Baltimore
Knox J.P, United States: Contemporary Human Geography 1988 Longman
Macnaughten Ph., Urry J., Contested Natures, Sage Publ., 1998 [Alternatywne Przyrody. Nowe myślenie o przyrodzie i społeczeństwie, Wyd. Scholar, 2005]
Mayda Ch., 2012 A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada: Toward a Sustainable Future, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Merchant C., American Environmental History: An Introduction Columbia University Press 2007
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: