In 2015, the United Nations outlined 17 Sustainable Development Goals for the year 2030 as an urgent call to action to ensure environmental, economic and social prosperity for all and to protect our planet.
There are many ways to tackle the pressing challenge of addressing climate change and building Sustainable Futures by studying in Carleton’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS). Health and wellness, education, food security, peace and justice, poverty reduction, and gender equality on local and global scales—these are all topics you can investigate through an array of FASS programs.
FYSM 1101Location is EverythingWhere we live affects who we are. The role of geographic location and environment on human perception, behaviour, and well-being, viewed at scales ranging from local to global; methods of collecting and interpreting information about location.
FYSM 1108Sustainable EnvironmentsThe causes and consequences of environmental change; emphasis on the interactions of nature and human behaviour. Ways in which the environment can be protected and restored. Environmental issues that affect our own communities.
FYSM 1504 Society and the Designed EnvironmentInquiry into the relation between human societies and the material environment which they inhabit and use. Focus is on the ways in which groups create the environments in which they live and the ways in which those environments influence and reproduce the groups.
FYSM 1610 Understanding Environmental DiscourseAn examination of how language and other symbol systems are used to portray and make arguments about ecology and the global environment, with a particular focus on climate change.
ENGL 1700Climate Change and the HumanitiesAn introduction to literature and culture in the context of the environmental humanities and climate change.
GEOM 1004Maps, Satellites and the Geospatial RevolutionIntroduction to the creation and use of maps using a variety of geospatial tools to better understand and resolve physical, social and environmental problems. Overview of geomatics (cartography and map design, geographic information systems, GPS, remote sensing).
ENST 1020People, Places and EnvironmentsIntroduction to human geography. Examination of relationships between people, communities, society and the natural environment at local to global scales. Population change, cultural patterns, and historical, economic, political and environmental forces that shape human activity and experiences from place to place.
GEOG 2023Cities, Inequality and Urban ChangeGeographical perspectives on the uneven power relationships and politics that shape urban lives and urban space. Key topics may include housing and segregation, planning for sustainable cities, urban social movements, urban inequality and changing livelihoods.
ENST 2500Climate Change: Social Science PerspectivesAn introduction to climate change as a political, economic and socio-cultural phenomenon, including the political-economic and world-historical causes of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; variations in impact and vulnerability; climate justice and other political movements; global mitigation and adaptation strategies; and proposals for radical systemic change.
ANTH 2850Development and UnderdevelopmentInternational development and its socio-cultural practices with consequences at local, national and international levels. Topics may include modernization, dependency, globalization, and development as discourse, political ecology, gender, indigenous knowledge, social movements, and non-governmental organizations.
HIST 2311Environmental History of CanadaA survey of Canadian history considering nature, landscape and geography. Topics include the history of energy regimes and climate change; Indigenous ecological knowledge; colonization and settlement; resource extraction; commodity production; environmental policies and movements.
GEOG 2600Geography Behind the HeadlinesExploration of the geographical backgrounds to selected issues of current public interest, through geography's perspective of integrating human and physical environments. Issues selected will be structured from the global through the national/regional to the local, identifying the interdependencies among the scales.
INDG 2015Indigenous Ecological Ways of KnowingIndigenous peoples’ relationships with the non-human world in both historical and contemporary contexts. Topics may include: the origins of Indigenous ecological ways of knowing, Indigenous languages, collective stewardship, water, land, and challenges to maintaining traditional knowledge.
ENGL 3920Literary Ecological Fieldwork This interdisciplinary, experiential fieldwork course brings together literature, culture, and ecology studies. At least 50% of class periods will be devoted to short field work excursions in the Ottawa region.
PHIL 2380Introduction to Environmental Ethics Major questions in environmental ethics: How should human beings view their relationship to the rest of nature? Is responsible stewardship of the environment compatible with current technology? Must future generations be protected? Do animals, other life forms, endangered species, ecosystems and/or the biosphere have value/rights?
ENST 2001Sustainable Futures: Environmental Challenges and SolutionsIndividual and collective responses to pressing environmental problems. Innovative ways in which the environment can be protected and restored, taking into consideration socioeconomic, political and cultural factors. Topics include environmental lifestyles, sustainable communities, food systems, environmental design, and political activism.
RELI 2811Religions and the EnvironmentAttitudes in the major world religions to nature and the environment and recent responses by religious traditions to ecological degradation and crisis. Includes examination of religious sensibilities expressed in environmentalism.