BSc Biology with Science & Society

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This unit aims to familiarise you with the fundamentals of environmental history and to provide an introduction to environmental activism and policy, using case studies that include ocean crisis, plastic pollution, environmental health, man-made disasters and food security.

The unit explores key environmental issues and trends during the last two hundred years, examining the cultural and economic histories of 'nature', and their relation to the emergence of risk society and the politics of environment. It investigates the origins of key environmental crises and analyses how societies define risk and sustainability, produce waste and conceptualise cleanliness.

On successful completion of the unit, you will be able to:

• Explore environmental issues in the light of their historical, scientific, economic and ethical background
• Describe the connections that link environmental changes and how culture and technology have influenced our relationship with nature globally
• Analyse the political and cultural origins of the environmental movement and environmental regulation
• Interpret the ideas and ideology that underpin environmental politics and use this knowledge to analyse a local environmental issue
• Prepare a written report integrating a range of viewpoints

In addition, for 20 credits:

• Research and write a literature-based review, including material from scientific, historical and social contexts

Content may vary from year to year in response to contemporary events and students interest, but will typically address the following broad topics:

• What is ecology?
• What is pollution?
• The rise of risk
• Climate crisis
• Food security
• Ocean's decline
• Disasters
• Plastics
• Urban sprawl
• E-Waste
• Limits to Growth?
• Crises in Fiction

• 12 Lectures
• 10 Seminars
• Online support through clinics on reading, writing and fieldwork.
• Occasional guest speakers.

Students should/will be able to:

• Understand and analyse environmental issues in the light of scientific, economic and ethical issues.
• Understand the global connections that link environmental changes and the role of global economy in changing our relationship with nature on a worldwide scale.
• Become critically aware of the origins of environmental movements and environmental politics.
• Connect knowledge gained in the unit with the observed evidence of local environmental change..

Students should/will be able to:

• Gain confidence in critically evaluating historical constructions of 'nature' and the 'environment'.
• Develop interpretive skills through reading, discussing and writing about the history of environmental thought and politics.
• Enhance creativity in identifying local environmental problems, behaviours and policies.
• Improve the critical reading of scholarship and ability to develop own point of view.

Students should/will be able to:

• Enhance reading skills through focused study of course readings and research literature.
• Learn to assess arguments presented in unit's readings and during seminar sessions.
• Find and critically assess sources for research and writing assessments.
• Increase fluency and confidence in seminar discussions.
• Apply knowledge gained in the unit in a short fieldwork in local area.

10 credits (UCIL20092)

1. 1500 word essay (50%)
2. 1500 word field report (50%)

20 credits (UCIL20592)

1. 1500 word essay (25%)
2. 1500 word field report (25%)
3. 3000 word project (50%)

Feedback will be available via Blackboard.

• J R McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (New York, 2000).
• M Armerio, A History of Environmentalism: Local Struggles, Global Histories (London, 2014).
• R Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge MA, 2011).
• W Cronon (ed), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York 1995).
• R Guha, Environmentalism: A Global History (London, 2000).
• M Rowlands, The Environmental Crisis: Understanding the Value of Nature (New York, 2000).
• M Douglas, Purity and Danger,London, 1984.
• J Sheail, An Environmental History of Twentieth-Century Britain (Basingstoke, 2002).
• J Hollander, The Real Environmental Crisis (Los Angeles, 2003).