About the Program
The Sustainability Studies Certificate program is designed to broaden and deepen students' understanding of the interconnected nature of the comprehensive social, economic, and environmental transformations of the 21st Century. This course of study will provide students with an interdisciplinary body of knowledge that focuses on the problems human civilization faces as well as the solutions and strategies that will lay the groundwork for a sustainable future. Students will develop leadership skills that inspire cooperation and mutual respect, and facilitiate innovative, durable, and sustainable pathways for social and personal change, economic security and prosperity, and environmental restoration.
Students who complete the Sustainability Studies Certificate program will be well preparared to make sound career and lifestyle choices that support and promote a satisfying and sustainable world for all living beings - now and into the indefinite future. The Certificate in Sustainability Studies will increase the marketability of students who go directly into the workforce, and will enrich the knowledge set of students who continue their education in sustainability related fields at the university level and beyond.
Program Requirements
For current program requirements -> 2024-2025
Program Goal: Local
GE Pattern(s): None
Program Code: SUSTAINABILITY.CC
Program Learning Outcome(s):
Upon successful completion of this program, the student will be able to:
Identify how current social, economic, and environmental problems affect their individual lives, the lives of people in other parts of the world, and the lives of future generations.
Define sustainability, evaluate the sustainability of particular systems and practices, and analyze the political and cultural challenges of sustainability implementation.
Recognize the fundamental impacts of humans, including commerce and attitudes, on the earth's systems.
Evaluate the interdependencies and long-term thinking necessary to grow the world economy while also protecting environmental resources.
Utilize critical thinking to develop a point of view regarding the problems and potential solutions for providing adequate yields of nutrient dense food and potable water for a growing global population, both in developing and developed countries.
Discuss and write about the ways in which fields such as environmental ethics, ecology, sociology, technology and others interconnect in Sustainability Studies.
Develop ideas to create common ground and promote the principles of sustainability to diverse groups of people.
Develop a knowledge base to enable them to choose lifestyles and careers that will promote sustainable principles.
Unit(s): 3.00
Transfer Status: CSU/UC
Contact Hours:
51.00 hours Lecture
Total Course Hours: 51.00
This course will introduce students to the structure of earth's ecosystems and to environmental issues, past and present from a biological science perspective. Students will be able to observe and interpret the relative health of environmental systems, and to connect this to the role of humans in sustaining life on earth. To reach this understanding, students will read classic environmental literature as well as current environmental literature. The course will include discussions, field trips and guest speakers as well as student involvement in a campus or local environmental effort. During this course students will be encouraged to recognize that their lives are dependent upon the environment, and that their personal decisions affect the entire natural world. Graded only.
Unit(s): 3.00
Transfer Status: CSU/UC
Contact Hours:
51.00 hours Lecture
Total Course Hours: 51.00
This course introduces students to contemporary environmental issues and policies meant to reduce environmental degradation. The course examines market failures, tools of policy analysis, government pollution reduction policies and their effectiveness.
Unit(s): 3.00
Transfer Status: CSU/UC
Contact Hours:
51.00 hours Lecture
Total Course Hours: 51.00
This course introduces students to the principles of 'Sustainability' within the global, national, regional, and local contexts. This course will increase students' literacy of the three interconnected 'pillars' of sustainable systems, the ecosystem, human society, and the economy. To develop these literacies, students will begin by investigating the perils that currently effect each system, for example, resource depletion, species extinction, pollution, and global warming in the ecosphere; population growth, social inequality, disease, violence and conflict in human societies; and imperialism, unemployment, consumerism and waste in the global economy. The majority of the course will focus on social institutions and organizations that are re-imagining our common future by rethinking and redesigning how we live. Students will learn of new and innovative uses of renewable resources, production processes, and human capital; alternative forms of energy, transportation, building materials, food production, media, education, and urban planning; and new ways to build coalitions, community, trust, and democratic participation. Case studies will highlight sustainability practices in different parts of the world from a variety of perspectives.
Corequisite(s): Completion of/or concurrent enrollment in a minimum of 3 courses from Sustainability Studies Certificate Program.
Unit(s): 2.00
Transfer Status: CSU
Contact Hours:
34.00 hours Lecture
Total Course Hours: 34.00
Sustainability Studies is a capstone seminar that will provide a forum for Sustainability Studies students to integrate and critically evaluate the various content of the courses within the Sustainability Studies Certificate Program. Emphasis will be placed on evaluating the triple-bottom-line impacts of economic, social and environmental practices and policies at local, regional and global levels. Graded only.
Unit(s): 3.00
Transfer Status: CSU/UC
Contact Hours:
51.00 hours Lecture
Total Course Hours: 51.00
This course is a study of the world's food needs with emphasis on the problems and policies of developing nations. The course will examine the evolution from hunter-gatherer to domesticated agriculture and the role agriculture currently plays in the sustainability of economic and political progress of developing nations and the ethical and environmental implications.
Unit(s): 3.00
Transfer Status: CSU/UC
Contact Hours:
51.00 hours Lecture
Total Course Hours: 51.00
This course examines the social-psychological themes, theories, causes, and practices of violence and peace in relationship to self, others and the natural world. We will address how one comes to tolerate and rationalize violence as the means for resolving complex social and environmental problems. Students will explore the threats to peace from a psychological foundation and examine how peacemaking and peace building promotes understanding, empathy, and compassion for personal, social, global, and environmental justice.
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Contacts
Heather Valle, Chair
(530) 895-2553
Department Office: LRC 304
(530) 895-2471
Counseling and Advising:
(530) 895-2378
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