CORE S196   Environmental Science and Storytelling

Earth is in the midst of unprecedented climate change driven by human activity colliding with complex environmental feedback. How do we know Earth's climate system and ecosystems are changing, and how will humans be affected? Students examine the science of environmental change through hands-on investigation of global change data from across Earth's land, air, water, and ecological systems, while also exploring how storytelling techniques and narrative analysis explain how we make sense of these changes and communicate them to ourselves and others. In this workshop-model course, students work together to develop scientific analysis and storytelling skills, tackling climate change science, environmental news stories, and personal interactions with the Earth from the global scale to their own home environment. Students investigate the causes of environmental change, the impacts of climate change on natural systems, the impact of climate change on humans, and the roles of interpretation, bias, lived experience, and different values systems on making sense of environmental scientific information.