Environmental Studies

The course is an introduction to soil degradation. It covers historical developments in soil degradation, causes and forms of soil degradation (biological, chemical, physical), the extent of soil degradation in Ghana, the GLASOD project, use of GIS to assess soil degradation, and principles and methods of rehabilitation and reclamation of degraded soils – regulations, policies, and community involvement.

The course provides a basis and preconditions to constructively and critically reflect on the interplay between global health, the Convention of the Rights of the Child, and different international and national norm-supporting structures. The course
offers basic knowledge of the contents of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and global health, and also discusses the interplay between the Convention on the Rights of the Child and global health. The course discusses the importance of the Convention for the development of children's rights and living conditions, policies, strategies, and laws.
 

This course is structured in two parts, theoretical and practical, and examines the diverging ontological, epistemological, and political frameworks to resolve the biosphere crisis to the human habitability of planet Earth. The first part of the course compares post-dualist approaches (advocating the abandonment of the society-nature distinction) with the theories that recognize a heuristic and epistemological value of the society-nature dualism. The second part of the course maps the range of policies, ideologies, and collective actions in response to the climate disaster: from neo-Malthusian eco-fascism defending a nationalist rootedness in the territory; to the liberal eco-modernism of green growth; as well as the socialist project of a Green New Deal and the agroecological peasant movement, La Via Campesina.

The course starts from the premise that climate change calls for new approaches to sustainable development that take into account complex interactions between climate, social, and ecological systems. This course focuses on experiences, actions, and approaches aiming at the production of services for a society that addresses both adaption and mitigation and promotes long-term climate resilience.

This course provides insight into the some of the most relevant social sciences and social scientific perspectives commonly used in global sustainability science. It introduces the field of social science – broadly the study of the relationship between individuals in their context within society – and its application to our understanding of environmental issues.This course discusses the skills needed to identify and apply some of the key social science concepts and theories that are commonly used in sustainability science. The first part of the course introduces the study of society, of society’s interactions with the environment, and of societal change, thus also demonstrating the specificity of a social scientific perspective on sustainability. The second part of the course examines various social processes of change in nature-society interactions, thus introducing and discussing a range of different, but often complementary theories that are commonly used to conceptualize change toward sustainability. The course is taught through interactive lectures and tutorials, and makes ample use of real world examples and case studies. The course involves diverse learning activities which include concept mapping, small group discussions, writing exercises, and hands-on critiques of students' own implicit assumptions about social processes that are critical for sustainability.