Learning outcomes
ENVS 205 has six major learning outcomes. After completing this course, successful students should be able to:
- Provide a broad overview of key national and global environmental challenges.
- Demonstrate familiarity with key scientific principles and environmental concepts, models, trends, leaders, and proposed solutions.
- Articulate and demonstrate how to undertake a critical interdisciplinary academic analysis of environmental issues that shows an understanding of environmental issues as socioecological.
- Identify and explore their own and other people’s environmental understandings and behaviours.
- Articulate some of the challenges to achieving sustainability goals and possibilities for social innovation on environmental issues.
- Communicate clearly and in an effective academic manner, and document and reflect on their learning.
Outline
ENVS 205 consists of 11 units:
Unit 0: The Structure of the Course
Unit 1: Critically Examining Environmental Change
Unit 2: Science, Energy, and Matter
Unit 3: Ecosystems and Complex Systems
Unit 4: Forests and Forestry Management
Unit 5: Agriculture and Soils
Unit 6: Freshwater, Oceans, and Fisheries
Unit 7: Atmosphere, Ozone, and Climate Change
Unit 8: Minerals, Energy, Waste, and Pollution
Unit 9: Endangered Species and Conservation
Unit 10: Urban Areas and Transitions to Sustainability
Evaluation
To receive credit for ENVS 205, students must complete and submit all of the assignments and quizzes. They must achieve an overall grade of at least D (50 percent) for the course.
Students will be evaluated on their understanding of the concepts presented in the course and on their ability to apply those concepts. The final grade in the course will be based on the marks achieved for the following activities.
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1: Critical Self-Reflection on Nature and Place | 15% |
| Assignment 2: Research Skills for Environmental Analysis | 10% |
| Assignment 3: Decoding Visual Media Representations of the Relationship between Humanity and the Rest of Nature in Popular Culture | 15% |
| Assignment 4: A Concept Map of Key Socioecological Concepts and their Connections | 15% |
| Assignment 5, Part A: Critical Social Innovation Analysis: Detailing the Innovation | 7% |
| Assignment 5, Part B: Critical Social Innovation Analysis: Critical Analysis of a Proposed Solution to an Environmental Challenge | 18% |
| Quiz 1 (Units 0–5) | 10% |
| Quiz 2 (Units 6–10) | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Dearden, P., Mitchell, B., & O’Connell, E. (2020). Environmental change and challenge: A Canadian perspective (6th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Other Materials
All other materials are available online.
Challenge for credit
Overview
The challenge for credit process allows you to demonstrate that you have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university-level course.
Full information about challenge for credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Evaluation
The challenge assessment for ENVS 205 involves the production of a portfolio of evidence; that is, documentation of the work completed for this course and a reflective commentary that includes the Course Learning Outcomes Map. Students challenging the course must demonstrate a sufficient knowledge of the key concepts, approaches, and people related to key environmental challenges, as well as their ability to undertake critical, interdisciplinary environmental analysis.
To receive credit for the ENVS 205 challenge registration, students must achieve an overall grade of at least D (50 percent) on the portfolio.
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1: Key Environmental Terms and Biogeochemical Systems | 30% |
| Assignment 2: Environmental Challenges and Critical Social Innovation Analysis | 40% |
| Assignment 3: Decoding Visual Media Representations of Nature in Popular Culture | 25% |
| Assignment 4: Self-Reflection of your Learning | 5% |
| Total | 100% |
Challenge for credit course registration form