The Capstone seminar of the Environmental Minors Program is a cross disciplinary team-taught course that provides students and faculty with a transformative educational experience. It is designed to facilitate and combine hands-on research projects, cross-disciplinary communication and teamwork, and opportunities for community service learning with intensive theoretical and methodological training, analysis and application. This capstone experience recognizes that environmental problems are complex and multifaceted, and that no single discipline or perspective can provide a society with the knowledge and tools that are necessary to understand, design and implement solutions to environmental problems. Thus, the seminar brings together students from each of the three different minor programs for a culminating experience. 

Our seminar design reflects the reality that contemporary environmental research and decision-making requires sustained cross-disciplinary communication and teamwork.  For this reason the course is team-taught by professors from different disciplines who will work together in the classroom for every session.  While an occasional guest speaker might make an appearance, the substance of the course is generated by the collaborative conversation between the faculty in the classroom and students.  The instructors of each course will design the course around a particular environmental topic.  To facilitate intensive projects it is capped at 16 students.

Course description.

Integrates perspectives from three environment programs: Environmental Management, Environmental Science and Environmental Studies. The course is team taught using a case-study approach to environmental issues, emphasizing teamwork and student initiative. Topics vary. Prerequisites: Completion of 15 hours in declared environment minor or permission of instructor. Students wishing to complete more than one of the Environment minors (Environmental Studies, Environmental Science, Environmental Management) may receive dual credit for ENVT 400. Prerequisites: Completion of 15 hours in declared environment minor or permission of instructor.

Spring 2012

Course topic: Feeding the Planet
Team: Wayne Teel (Ph.D. ISAT) and Katey Castellano (Ph.D. English)

This semester, we will focus on the global and local food systems that feed the planet. Beginning with a global perspective, this course will investigate various environmental impacts and implications of intensive agriculture on the planet.  By bringing together expertise from multiple disciplines, students will be encouraged to consider how and to what extent agriculture:

• causes environmental degradation and/or remakes environments for better or worse;
• impacts, shapes and is enabled by culture and beliefs;
• is produced by the political economies of the region, the nation and the global system.

As a class, students will begin by determining the wide-ranging environmental and cultural impacts of global food systems.  Then, students will form small groups based on interest and background in order to complete more research on a local aspect of the problem as well as formulate possible solutions.  These groups will then integrate their findings into a final presentation and research paper.

Spring 2011

Course topic: Mountaintop Removal in Appalachia
Team: Bruce Wiggins (Ph.D. Biology) and Pete Bsumek (Ph.D. Communication)

This course will investigate various environmental impacts of mountaintop removal.  By bringing together expertise from multiple disciplines, students will be encouraged to consider how mountaintop removal causes environmental degradation, impacts culture and beliefs, and affects the economy of the region.  As a class, students will begin by determining the wide-ranging causes and impacts of mountaintop removal in Appalachia.  Then, students will form small groups based on interest and background in order to complete more research on one aspect of the problem as well as formulate possible solutions.  These groups will then integrate their findings into a final presentation and research paper.

Previous topics

Spring 2010

Course topic: Biofuels and the Global Food Supply
Team: Jennifer Coffman (Ph.D. Anthropology) and Steve Frysinger (Ph.D. Environmental Science)