Introduces texts that explore the relationship between people and their environments, both natural and buit. Examines historical trends that have shaped thinking, understanding, and feelings about how humans and the natural world interact. Explores literary writings on issues of sustainability, environmental justice, ecological literacy, and a sense of place.

Upon completeion, students should be able to:

• Identify, define, and evaluate kinds of environmental literature.

• Identify and explain the strategies which poets, novelists, essayists and other writers have used to address environmental questions.

• Use the methods of literary analysis and literary history to identify changing trends in environmental tropes and concerns.

• Apply an understanding of environmental literature to explain the interconnected environmental effects of everyday decisions we make as individuals and a culture.

• Critically examine the complex and interconnected relationship between human behavior and the environment through a lens of sustainability and the “triple bottom line” of people, planet, and profit.