Courses

SED students are also required to complete all CED College requirements, which includes the Reading and Composition requirement and the Seven Course Breadth requirement.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 110 - Designing Sustainability

ENV DES 110 is taken by all incoming SED first years and transfer students. The course is an opportunity to meet your cohort and explores varying interpretations of sustainability through the fields of design, economics, law, and advocacy. Guest speakers will walk students through various career and life paths in the field of sustainability, and demonstrate how the field is being constructed in real time. The course will also introduce students to various concentrations, dual-degrees and certificate programs available to SED majors.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 12 - Environmental Science for Sustainable Development

LD ARCH 12 introduces students to the scientific basis of sustainability as explored through the study of energy, water, food, natural resources and the built environment, with a focus on the application of scientific insights to sustainable development strategies. The course emphasizes hands-on learning through field-based exercises such as measurement of atmospheric particulate matter, micro-climates, channel form, aquatic insects and water quality, and direct observations of green infrastructure, green building methods, and urban agriculture.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 102 - Climate Changes and City Planning: Adaptation and Resilience

A critical approaches course, ENV DES 102 challenges students to think critically about the idea of sustainability, develop critiques of current sustainable urbanism/design practice, and envision the institutional and behavioral changes required for a more sustainable future.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE/ GEOGRAPHY C118 - Geographic Information Systems

GIS has become a basic tool for a wide range of analytic tasks across all environmental design fields. As a methods/technology course, LD ARCH/GEOG C118 addresses both GIS theory and applications, offering a dynamic analytical framework for gathering, integrating, interpreting and manipulating temporal and spatial data.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 106 - Sustainable Environmental Design Workshop

A capstone workshop course, ENV DES 106 links sustainability science and technology with urban form and social dynamics. This workshop requires independent and collaborative research, with an external ‘client’ organization, to offer innovative strategies for sustainable environmental design.

The intent of recommended area courses is to provide students with opportunities to deepen their knowledge about specific issues in sustainability. Each of the area courses focuses on an essential aspect of sustainability with the premise that urban sustainability is a multi-dimensional problem and sustainable environments emerge from the intersection of technology, design, economics, policy, and societal change. The associated courses are available to SED students as electives.

For more information on the SED Major, please see the student handbook, linked below.