The purpose of this three-year project is the development of a curriculum including six new courses, leading to an Interdisciplinary Minor in Global Sustainability at the University of California, Irvine. The new courses will integrate and address global sustainability themes across disciplines and will be developed and taught by faculty from five of UCI's schools: Biological Sciences, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, and Social Ecology. The Minor will be open to undergraduates in all disciplines and will begin in the sophomore year with a sequence of three core courses. The first course, The Physical Environment, will deal with the origin of the earth, the dynamics of its oceans, lands and atmosphere, and the impact of human uses on the physical world. The second course, The Biological Environment, will examine the evolution of biological diversity and ecosystems, and the impacts on biological diversity of human encroachment, exploitation, and pollution. The third course, People, Cultures, and Environmental Sustainability, will cover the causes and consequences of human population growth, natural resource management, environmental law, and environmental ethics. In the junior year, students will select from a series of elective courses in relevant disciplines. In the senior year students will attend a seminar series, complete a research project, and present the results of their projects at an undergraduate research symposium. AU courses will include relevant field experiences making use of UC's Natural Reserve System as well as other sites. The overall curricular structure and proposed courses have already been approved by appropriate UCI Academic Senate committees. Ongoing evaluation will consist of formative and ?tive components using data from student surveys and interviews. Electronic communication will be used for data acquisition by faculty and students, for communication between students, faculty and the outside, and for dissemination of the pro gram to other institutions. Additional dissemination activities will include presentations at national conferences for environmental educators, a journal article, and videotapes of seminars given by guest lecturers.
