Sustainable Natural Resources Graduate Certificate Program- SNR 520
SNR 520: Socially Sustainable Natural Resources (3 credits)
Instructors: Denise Lach, John Bliss, Court Smith
Timeframe: 14 two-hour sessions
Course Description
Using readings, personal experiences, and class discussion, we will explore five social sustainability principles and review the role they play in creating forest-based sustainable communities:
- Human and community well being
- Tenure rights and security
- Participatory democracy
- Social viability
- Cultural diversity
We will also review and practice using secondary data to analyze communities and develop protocols for collecting original data about social variables.
The assignments are designed to help build the social component of an individual case study and build upon the readings, lectures and field trip. Class sessions will consist of lectures from the instructor or a guest speaker, discussions about social sustainability issues, and presentations on specific topics. At the end of the course, each student will present his/her strategy using one or more of the social sustainability principles for the social component of the individual case study. This strategy or protocol will be used for the remainder of the session, as students continue to collect data to answer the questions about social sustainability in relation to his/her specific project area.
Desired Learning Outcomes
- Ability to identify and characterize variables related to social sustainability.
- Ability to use secondary data to analyze community sustainability.
- Ability to operationalize social sustainability variables and design methods to collect original data on those variables.
- Ability to integrate social sustainability principles with your project area.
Identify variables of human and community well being for a specific project area.
Identify variables of tenure rights and security for the project area.
Identify and characterize critical social variables regarding community well being and tenure rights at the field trip site.
Using census or other available data, find information to measure the variables of human and community well being and tenure rights/security for you area.
Identify variables of participatory democracy for the project area.
Identify variables of social viability for the project area.
Design a protocol describing methods to collect original data about the variables you identified in the project area related to participatory democracy and social viability.
Present your plan for collecting information about community sustainability in the project area. Provide information about how the social aspects of sustainability affect and are affected by elements of economic and ecologic sustainability.
