Instructor: Mark Boyer

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Boyer welcomes Honors students of all levels and majors and encourages Honors conversions. If you do not have junior standing, contact Dr. Boyer for a permission number.

This course in human geography focuses on two primary sets of linkages:

1. Global-local linkages in an age of accelerating globalization
2. Human-environment interactions

Additionally, the course will explore the interaction between those two sets of linkages, their geographical context, policy implications and their ever-evolving status in today’s contemporary world. Fundamental to the course are considerations of scale as we move from the global to the regional to the local and seek to understand how each spatial realm impacts the others. Moreover, emphasizing systemic thinking throughout the course, the latter part of the course employs a future modeling simulation that will allow students to build scenarios about world and regional futures.

This is also a course that requires active participation by students in all aspects of the course. You will need to participate in class discussions, read assigned materials, work in groups to solve problems and use computers in a variety of ways in the course. Thus, students should be prepared for an active learning environment that is flexible and adaptable to a variety of approaches and learning styles. Students are encouraged to ask questions, to raise interesting topics and to explore the world of global environmental politics in new and creative ways. Only by doing this will the next generation of citizens and policy-makers be able to meet the environmental challenges facing the world system now and in the future.

Course Methods:

• The first half of the course will utilize case method teaching. Case method is a discussion-centric teaching model.
• The second will make use of the International Futures Simulation (IFS) – see http://pardee.du.edu/ for more information.