Objectives and Outcomes

The overall goal of the Penn State Altoona Environmental Studies program is ecological literacy, which means, to quote the program proposal, that students should develop and demonstrate a “broad-based understanding and awareness of multi-dimensional environmental issues” and be able to apply “problem-solving skills to address those issues.” The program is interdisciplinary, synthesizing information from the natural sciences (biology, ecology, earth sciences, chemistry) with the social sciences (economics, public policy, psychology, anthropology) and the arts and humanities (art, film, literature, history, philosophy), with an emphasis on active, applied, experiential learning.

Here are the particular learning objectives of the ENVST program, with a general goal statement followed by more specific student learning objectives:

Student Learning Objectives:

1. Students will demonstrate their acquisition of knowledge in a variety of disciplines relevant to studies of natural environments. (Focus: Knowledge Sets.)
   1. Students will be able to explain the following concepts from ecology and biology as they apply to a given local ecosystem:
      • nutrient cycles—carbon, hydrologic, nitrogen, etc.
      • biodiversity—species identification, functional roles and niches, food chains, habitat relations
      • natural selection—adaptation, selective pressures, speciation, genetic evolution
      • threats to natural systems—pollution, exotic species, economic development, overpopulation
   2. Students will be able to explain the geologic processes that have given rise to local (central Pennsylvania) landscapes, and the geologic processes that are likely to have helped create any given landscape.
   3. Students will be able to explain the history of land use in local landscapes and the history of land use in America. They will be able to explain the ways in which local or regional stories intersect with or reject national cultural patterns. They will be able to explain how ethics and values affect the study of environmental history. (Hist 453)
   4. Students will be able to explain the economic dimensions of land and resource use, and to explain the means of valuing (in economic terms) land and resources.
   5. Students will be able to explain the ethical dimensions of human-environmental interactions, including questions of land use and the treatment of other living things.
   6. Students will be able to explain relevant public policies as they pertain to current environmental issues and be able to explain how those policies pertain to conditions in a given environment.
   7. Students will be able to identify and explain the role of the following:
      • important nature writers and poets (Thoreau, Muir, Jeffers, Leopold, Abbey)
      • relevant aesthetic movements of the last two centuries (romanticism, transcendentalism, realism, naturalism, modernism)
      • the following concepts: biocentrism, anthropocentrism, deep ecology, ecocriticism, the frontier hypothesis,
      • the important themes of environmental literature/nature writing: psychic restoration, the exterior and interior landscape, conflicts of values,
   8. Students will be able to explain the broad geographic perspectives of the environment as they provide a link between the natural and social sciences.
   9. Students will be able to design and conduct a scientific research study and critically evaluate its results. (Stat 250)
   10. Students will be able to demonstrate how findings from sample data obtained from scientific research studies can be extended to larger and more general populations (?) and data sets. (Stat 250)
   11. Students will be able to use the statistical software package MINITAB. (Stat 250)
   12. Students will be able to explain the role of politics and government in formulating environmental policies. (Poli Sci)
       1. Students will be able to summarize the range of demographic, geographic, cultural, economic, and political factors affecting environmental policy making.
       2. Students will be able to explain the role and impact of the following in influencing and formulating environmental policy at the local, state, and federal levels:
          1. political parties
          2. interest groups
          3. elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels
          4. judges
          5. non-elected government officials
       3. Students will be able to explain the impact of various forms of political participation on the policy process.
       4. Students will be able to explain the composition and operation of the law-making institutions of state and local governments and their role in the policy process.
       5. Students will be able to explain the impact of political actors and institutions on the formation of environmental policy.
2. Students will be able to demonstrate their grasp of the methodologies of the disciplines involved in the knowledge sets relevant to environmental studies, and to apply those methodologies in the analysis of environmental issues. (Focus: Methods)
1. Students will be able to apply the steps of the scientific method: formulating hypotheses, setting up an experiment, collecting data, doing statistical evaluation, interpreting results, and reporting results.
2. Students will be able to support analyses of environmental issues by making references to relevant literary works, and to perform analyses of works of art and literature, with their analysis informed by information from the natural sciences and from environmental ethics, economics, history, and public policy.
3. Students will be capable of interpreting a work of environmental literature with reference to relevant environmental science, public policy issues, environmental ethics, and environmental history.
4. Students will be able to construct and conduct surveys of attitudes, values, and behaviors.
5. Students will be able to conduct statistical and spatial geographic analyses.
6. Students will be able to use different statistical methods of Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics. (Stat 250)
7. Students will be able to construct various statistical tables and graphs to describe data efficiently. (Stat 250)
8. Students will be able to support analyses of statistical inference like estimation and hypothesis testing in order to demonstrate how sample findings can be extended to larger and more general populations. (?) (Stat 250)
9. Students will be able to employ the methodologies of historical analysis, placing environmental policy-making in historical context. They will be able to derive theoretically significant questions from a historical analysis of the creation and evolution of environmental policy. (PoliSci)
10. Students will demonstrate a grasp of the case method, employing narratives about political behavior, political institutions, and their impact on the policy process. (PoliSci)
11. Students will demonstrate a grasp of quantitative and comparative methods, using measurable variation over time and across jurisdictions to formulate and test hypotheses and theories about political institutions, political behavior, and their impact on the policy process. (Poli Sci)
12. Students will be able to do a wide range of research in order to address environmental issues and problems in the natural sciences, economics, environmental policy, environmental history, environmental ethics, environmental literature. They will know where to find relevant information for problems involving each of these areas and how to consult relevant sources of information (printed and electronic bibliographies, public archives, internet sources).
13. Students will learn by doing. If the ENVST program teaches that natural environments matter, then it follows that much of the learning in the program will take place in natural environments, i.e., outside. They will gain experience in rafting, canoeing, and hiking—not only for exposure to the recreational values of outdoors, but for close, immediate, real contact with subject of their studies.
3. Students will be able to integrate information from a variety of contexts or fields of knowledge in order to assess a particular environmental feature, issue, or problem, and then be able to propose and plan actions intended to address the problem. (Focus: Action. Analysis, Synthesis, Integration. Incl. writing and planning.)
   1. Students will be able to apply a variety of communication skills in order to affect environmental policy, public perception, or individual values and attitudes. They will be able to demonstrate the ability to “report” not just in the form of a scientific report but to a variety of audiences using variety of communication methods linked to their career goals. Specific communication skills will include the writing of essays, reports, and proposals, and may include as well creative writing, public speaking, art, and website creation.
   2. Students should be able to “read” or interpret a landscape and assess its value (not necessarily economic) from a variety of perspectives informed by natural science, economics and environmental policy, and humanities. Students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge in the field. For example, they will be able to explain the workings of nutrient cycles in a particular ecosystem (the role of this bug on this leaf in this puddle), to assess the economic value of that ecosystem and how it is affected by relevant public policies, to place the landscape in a historical context, and to help us understand the aesthetics or value of the landscape with reference to a literary work.
   3. Students will be able to apply to real world problems the knowledge and methodologies of statistics. (Stat 250)
   4. Students will be able to analyze objectives of specific environmental policies within the context of American history. Students will be able to compare and contrast the ethics of early policy initiatives with contemporary developments. (Hist 453)
   5. Students will be able to read patterns of land use on the landscape and place them within the context of use patterns nationwide and over time. (Hist 453)
   6. Students will be able to produce a report on the impact of political behavior and institutions on a specific environmental policy about which they have acquired some substantive knowledge. (Poli Sci)
   7. Students will demonstrate a capacity to make reasonable assertions about the impact of plausible changes in political behavior and institutions as they affect specific environmental policies.
   8. Students will be able to assess an environmental issue, make appropriate policy recommendations, and articulate the rationale (whether aesthetic, cultural, economic, or scientific) underlying their recommendations.