Check out the team presentations that students in ENV 202 just presented in class last week!  All of them are on important environmental issues in North Carolina, including red wolf conservation, sea level rise, sustainable transportation, renewable energy, food waste, and brownfield development.

Presentations

The fourth and final blog post assignment was about the relationship between the “psyche” and the environment.  Using both anecdotal examples and quantitative data from our readings, students were asked to address the following questions: What is the most important psychological barrier (“dragon” as one of our authors called them) to climate change mitigation and adaptation for most Americans?  For yourself?  Should policymakers work to overcome these barriers?  If so, how can they be overcome?  If not, why not?  Students were also asked to cite three of the authors we read in the course related to this topic.  Here are a couple examples of their work:

Jackie Barry: Psyche and the Environment

Stephanie Schauder: Barriers to Action

Wilson Waddill: The Impact of Psychological Barriers on Climate Change Mitigation

For this assignment, students wrote a 500-600 post on the relationship between culture, nature, and sustainability at Davidson College.  They were encouraged to think like an anthropologist, and how an enthographer would analyze the culture of Davidson.  The post was to make a connection to at least one of the readings from the course.  Below are links to a few of the students’ work on this topic:

Sarah Roberts: Culture, Nature and Sustainability

Josh Hengen: Tour of Commons

Betsy Marshall: Davidson: Do We Promote a Greener Community and Individual?

http://sites.davidson.edu/bemarshall/?page_id=6#comment-3

For our second blog post assignment, students were asked to discuss the relationship between markets and the environment, with an exploration of both how markets can be both harmful and beneficial to the environment.  The 450-500 word posts were to include any two of the following concepts that we read about and discussed in class: perfect competition, market equilibrium, monopoly, externality, public or common good.  Overall, the discussions were very good, and demonstrated the class’s engagement with the material.  Here are a couple links to some of the students posts on the topic:

Polly Ukrop: The Intersection of Economics and the Environment

Laura George: This Little Piggy Went to Market

Sarah Dwyer: Markets and the Environment

The first unit of ENV 202 course in the fall of 2012 is focused on power and the environment.  We have read a wide range of materials that have illuminated how power operates through institutions, commodity, chains, public policy, and governance approaches, and enables human beings to have both positive and negative effects on the environment and each other.  Our first assignment was to write a 450-500 page blog post about the nature of power and how it is relevant to the environment, highlighting at least two of the readings we have covered so far.  The posts overall were very well-written, and demonstrated a deep and personal engagement with the material.  I’m providing links to several of the best discussions below for your reference — hope you find them interesting…

Cameron Clark: Documentaries: Persuasive or Manipulative?

Elizabeth Welliver: Power of the People

Katie Mathieson: Power and the Environment