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Minor in Sustainability {22-23}

Minor in Sustainability

Description
The sustainability minor is an excellent addition to any major. It has an interdisciplinary focus with the shared goal of understanding, preserving and promoting a healthy planet. MSUM is one of only a few universities in the country to approach sustainability across the curriculum. The Sustainability Minor consists of 25 credits.

Student Learning Outcomes

  • Explore the concept of sustainability within the context of socio-environmental systems. 
  • Evaluate how humans impact the surface of the earth and the biosphere, and the consequential effects on ecosystem services. 
  • Examine the relationships between civilization, society and energy use and look at possible steps to a sustainable energy and environmental future. 
  • Identify issues faced by developing countries in the conflict between rapid economic development and the threat of environmental degradation.
  • Describe how class, gender, race, ethnicity, nation status, and other identities intersect with relationships within environmental justice and activism.
  • Examine the motivations behind humans' decisions to modify ecosystems throughout the world, and the effects that environmental change has had on the peoples and ecosystems throughout human history. 
  • Interpret any environmental issue within a systems thinking framework.
  • Articulate the ethical responsibilities humans have for the non-human world and for future human generations.

Core Requirements ( 15 credits )

SUST 200 Nature of Sustainability (3)
ENGL 407 Big City, Big Impact (3)
PSCI 378 Energy and Environment (3)
SUST 421 Systems Thinking (3)
SUST 432 Environmental Dilemmas (3)

Restricted Electives ( 10 credits )

Take one course from the list of science electives.

GEOS 109/GEOS 109L Processes and History of a Dynamic Planet (4)
GEOS 110/GEOS 110L Water, Land, and People: An Introduction to Physical Geography (4)
BIOL 115/BIOL 115L Organismal Biology with Lab (4) 

Take two courses from the list of global and human diversity electives: 

GEOS 111 Cultures and Regions (3) 
HIST 374 Plagues and People (3)
HIST 379 Environmental History (3)
SUST 485 Global Health Perspectives (3)
WS 330 Gender, Justice and the Environment (3)