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Course Objectives


The primary objective of the course is to consider the concept of sustainability, along with related ideas about development, resilience, productivity, etc... from the combined viewpoints of natural science, social science, and natural resource policy. Our specific focus will be on the relationships between humans and aquatic and agricultural ecosystems. We think that the kind of science and policy we wish to focus on pertains to time scales of decades (10 -- 100 years) rather than days to years or multiple centuries to millennia. The Northwest Environment Watch Cascadia Scorecard calls this "slow news" -- shifts that are extreme over decades but almost imperceptible day to day. John Magnuson talks about the "invisible present" and Steve Carpenter "the long now".

The bottom line is that in order to develop a more "sustainable" future in the way we interact with the natural world, we are going to have to turn our thinking on its head and revolutionize the way we do our work. And that, we hope, is what this course is all about. There are several ways we hope to do this:
  • The focus of the course will be on developing science and policy of the integration of parts by focusing not so much on the individual components of a particular system as on the interrelationships among its components. The intent here is to develop the ability to understand relationships, interactions and tradeoffs as they apply to contemplated policy decisions.
  • The consideration of time is essential to all aspects of sustainability science and policy. We will learn how to pay particular attention to slow organizing variables and the linkages between the past, present and future.
  • Interdisciplinary collaboration is one of the fundamental dimensions of sustainability science/policy and, until now, has been lacking in UW education. Communication and collaboration between natural scientists, social scientists and resource policy analysts will be a primary focus of the course.
  • In this course we hope to incorporate a broader integrated view of the ecology of physical, biological, and human natural resource systems into policy
By the end of the quarter, we would like the students to:
  • Be able to think both qualitatively and quantitatively about complex social-ecological issues
  • Have an intuitive understanding of sustainability science and policy as an aid to natural resource problem solving
  • Be accomplished in interdisciplinary collaboration.