3 credits
Prerequisites: None
Satisfies requirements for: Interdisciplinary (ID) LSA Area Distribution Requirements; PitE Practical Experience
Meets: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Instructor: Tim McKay
Course Description:
In this course, we will bring together 15,000 years of Michigan's geological, biological, and human history with contemporary climate science, and use it all as inspiration for a multi-disciplinary imagining of our region's future. Along the way, we will consider carefully how we can learn about the world as it was in the past, expand our appreciation for how the past informs the present, and explore how our actions in the present influence the future.
We will learn together about these topics, from texts in many forms and from the landscapes and environments that surround us at UMBS. We will read short extracts from authors who encountered Michigan’s environment and people in the past, those who shaped their evolution through the 19th and 20th century, and those who are our collective future. Much of our time together will be spent discussing what we have experienced and learned. And then, most importantly, we will each think and write about our own thoughts on the past, present, and future
By the end of this course, every student should demonstrate a solid introductory understanding of three aspects of the Great Lakes in a time of climate change:
- Dramatic climate, environmental, and social change has a deep history in Michigan
- Climate change during your life will be different, and presents special environmental and social challenges and opportunities in Michigan
- Our climate, environmental, and social future can be anticipated, altered, and designed
At the Biostation, we will see evidence of Michigan buried by a glacier, its long post-glacial human and environmental recovery, the destruction wrought by extractive industries in the 19th century, restoration shaped by conservation and environmental movements in the 20th century, and the new challenges posed by climate change. You can’t prepare for the future without knowing the lessons from the past. In this class, we’ll do both.
