Courses

An exploration of various practical applications of biology in environmental management, monitoring, and remediation. Topics include many important areas of concern such as wildlife management, fisheries, forestry, agriculture, water and air pollution, and protection of endangered ecosystems. Various biological approaches to these are considered, such as population modelling, ecophysiology, microbiology techniques, biomonitoring, ecosystem health, and biodiversity inventories. The implications of environmental ethics and the role of Christian environmental stewardship are discussed.

An introduction to the materials and processes of the physical earth: rocks and minerals, earth structure and composition, plate tectonics, volcanology, seismology, crustal deformation, weathering and erosion, slope movement, sedimentation, wind and water processes, glaciation, and geologic time. Earth materials and processes are studied in the laboratory and in the field. This course is an environmental studies core requirement.

Examines key themes in the development of the modern world from the seventeenth to the late twentieth century. Students will analyze significant political, religious, economic, and cultural changes. Students will be introduced to the historical and archival way of knowing so they can gain an effective means of understanding, appreciating, and critiquing the past to better understand the present and prepare for the future.

Explores our understanding of the people, places and events that have influenced Canada’s history. This course examines the narratives of progress and reimagines the nation through a history of relation as informed by Indigenous and newcomer ways of knowing. It interacts with Canada’s past by immersing students in the study of Indigenous/settler encounters, economic exchange, French/English, national identity, minority rights, women’s agency, global movements, and environmental issues.

The history of First Nations, Métis Nations and Inuit Nations in Canada from time immemorial through to the present from various perspectives gained from interactions with Indigenous authors and guest speakers and cultural experiences such as immersion trips to Indigenous territories. Engage broad economic, social and political themes associated with Canada's settler society and gain cultural intelligence by analyzing from an Indigenous perspective how standard narratives of progress shaped early encounters, the fur trade economy, governmental policy, Christianity and culture, residential schools, land reserves and self-government. Considers the ways in which Indigenous nations utilized and reshaped Canada's historical narrative to resist assimilation, paternalism, civilization, marginalisation, and integration. Examines arguments for partnership, cooperation, negotiation and reconciliation in a movement towards peaceful co-existence.

An examination of ethical issues that pertain to social justice, addressing such topics as the distribution of wealth, the difference between equality and equity, the effects of globalization, and the morality of war.

Explores the theological and philosophical dimensions of the doctrine of creation and from there highlights the various philosophical shifts of outlook that helped usher in modern naturalism and its notions of nature. We will investigate the metaphysics behind the fact/value dichotomy, various environmental ethical frameworks, the case for the moral status of non-human animals and abiotic entities, the evolution of the ecological crisis, the conceptual substructures of some popular contemporary environmental frameworks, and some of the agendas of response to our current ecological crisis.

This course provides a survey of empirical research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, used in social and political analysis with practical application of these methods to such issues as research design; the preparation of a literature review; the application of quantitative survey techniques and case study methods; interviewing techniques; and research ethics.