Environmental Studies

The course discusses principles of conservation as well as plant and animal protection and their application to the West African environment. Topics include management of renewable natural resources, conservation of plant genetic resources, pollution of the environment, the Ghana's Environmental Action Plan, climate change and other global environmental problems.

Nanotechnology is an emerging field that covers a wide range of technologies which are presently under development in nanoscale. It plays a major role in the development of innovative methods to produce new products, to substitute existing production equipment and to reformulate new materials and chemicals with improved performance resulting in less consumption of energy and materials and reduced harm to the environment as well as environmental remediation. Environmental applications of nanotechnology address the development of solutions to the existing environmental problems, preventive measures for future problems resulting from the interactions of energy and materials with the environment, and any possible risks that may be posed by nanotechnology itself. This course gives a comprehensive review on the ongoing research and development activities on environmental remediation by nanotechnology.

The course presents the field of sustainable health and environment from an East Asian perspective in a globalized world. It covers facts and developments in issues related to sustainable health and environment through cross-country lectures, multimedia viewing, panel discussion, and group projects and presentations. The sciences of sustainable health and environment cover broad and intersected disciplines from health sciences, physical sciences to social sciences locally, regionally, and globally. Views of sustainable health and environment are cultivated from current and historical perspectives as well as local and regional living experience. Global perspectives are further cultivated through in-class discussion among students, group projects by cross-country teams, and essay writing. Guest lectures by distinguished experts in the fields of sustainable health and environmental sciences provide global perspectives on sustainable issues.

This course serves as an introduction to the field of environmental communication: What does it entail, what should it achieve, who are the intended recipients, and what is the intended outcome? The course studies some theoretical texts, addressing “the two cultures,” “framing,” and “technocratic discourse.” The course then analyzes political speeches about environmental policy and a manifesto. Finally, the course looks at the genesis of scientific and literary nature writing and studies extracts from classics such as Henry David Thoreau’s WALDEN or Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING as well as more recent texts by British and American authors. The course analyzes how these different texts operate, what they aim to accomplish and whether they succeed.

This course provides students with a broad background in the principles of ecology. It covers ecology at different levels of organization including behavioral, physiological, evolutionary, population & community, and ecosystem ecology. Some other specialized topics are also discussed.