BIOL 112 - Health in the Anthropocene

This class interrogates the interplay of the forces that shape the interconnected health of human populations and planet on which we live. One of the largest issues of environmental justice that affects health is human-caused climate change. Human-environment interactions in health also play out in tiny ways, every day - the water we drink, the food we eat, illnesses we contend with. These large and small issues intertwine in numerous ways. What and how we eat, drink, travel, use energy all reflect the ways in which and the scales at which we extract resources from our environment and ask us to consider the impacts of these activities on our environment which includes our own species. In this course, we will bookend our work with “views” of the large scale - looking back to history of health and climate interactions and into present/future interactions of health and anthropogenic climate change. Between those, we will delve into the stories of water, food, illnesses on a smaller scale. We will explore these topics using readings from assigned texts, films, field trips, writing projects and expressive/artistic inquiry. Three lecture hours each week. Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)