The following list includes Masters courses offered regularly by program faculty, as well as courses offered by other campus units that may be used to fulfill GEP or NRSD program requirements. In consultation with a student’s adviser, other courses may be approved to fulfill specific program requirements. Most courses on this list are offered annually unless otherwise noted. Specific offerings each year are subject to instructor availability and scheduling considerations.

NRSD students should note the following:

1. During their first semester at American University, NRSD students typically choose three courses from among the following, in consultation with the advising office and program faculty. Students with an adequate background in Economics or Development are encouraged to take a substantive GEP seminar as one of their three courses during the first semester. The Economics requirement applies to all SIS students; it may be completed in an NRSD student's first or last semester at AU.

• SIS 660, Environment and Politics (required)

• Economics requirement: ECON 579 (Environmental Economics) or ECON 603 (Intro to Economic Theory)

• Development: SIS 636 (Micro-politics of Development) or SIS 637 (International Development)

• A GEP seminar (SIS 620) in a substantive area of interest such as food, water, energy, or climate

2. NRSD students must register for a non-credit course in Spanish unless they have attained fluency. Students will also take Spanish during the first semester at U Peace, and many also work with a Spanish tutor while in Costa Rica.

3. During the second and third semesters, spent at the University for Peace, NRSD students choose from UPeace course offerings. At UPeace, students typically take one course at a time, offered during 3-week modules. For a complete list of current UPeace courses, please visit http://www.upeace.org/course.cfm.

4. During their final semester back at American University, NRSD students typically register for 3 credits to write their Substantial Research Paper (SRP) and take three seminars from the GEP course list or other SIS/AU course offerings.

Course List

SIS-660 Environment and Politics (3)

SIS 660 is the required introductory seminar for the Global Environmental Policy (GEP) and Natural Resources & Sustainable Development (NRSD) programs, to be taken in the fall semester of the first year. The course provides an introductory overview of environmental politics and policy, with emphasis on the international and global dimensions. The purpose of the course is to lay a foundation for more advanced study by introducing students to relevant conceptual frameworks, controversies, issue areas, and analytic methods.

SIS-620 Political Ecology of Food and Agriculture (3)

Food presents a unique lens to examine political, cultural, and technological connections to environment and development. This course provides students with an introduction to political ecology and its approach to global food studies. Students use political ecology and social theory paradigms to examine industrial and alternative food networks, including their impacts on the environment, communities, and rural development. Students also examine how food policy and the global food trading system shape these networks and local environments, communities, and development practices.

SIS-620 Water Governance (3)

Examines international and cross-national dimensions of water politics and policy. Major themes include international and comparative water law; cooperation and conflict in shared river basins; water, poverty, and economic development; transnational activism and civil society; water, violent conflict, and peacebuilding; water and climate change.

SIS-620 Global Climate Change (3)

An interdisciplinary look at the history, science, policy, and politics of preventing global climate change. This course, for non-specialists as well as environmental studies students, focuses on how we created one of humanity's biggest problems and how to solve it, particularly through education, communications, organizing, and advocacy. Meets with SIS-496 001.

SIS-619 Political Economy of Oil and Energy (3)

This course examines the international political economy and security dimensions of oil and energy.  The course explores the industry’s many impacts on politics and economics, including Dutch disease and the resource curse; the relationship between oil, authoritarianism, and civil wars; the role of the rentier state; the influence of oil on international warfare; global energy governance; political differences within OPEC; US energy policy and energy security.  The materials focus primarily on the political economy of oil-exporters, especially those in the Middle East.

SIS-620 Climate Change Financing (3)

This class examines the emerging financial architecture of responding to climate change. Learning objectives include exploring the dynamics and drivers of climate change and development challenges; providing insights into the evolving international climate change financing architecture; giving students a sound grounding in climate change financing and the policies and politics of programs and projects; and connecting students to the larger environmental and climate change communities, both locally and globally.

SIS-620 Comparative Environmental Politics (3)

This course investigates environmental degradation through comparison of cases including China, the U.S., Latin America, and other regions. By drawing on multidisciplinary literature that illuminates the specificity and commonality of the cases, the class seeks a deep understanding of the multiple causes of environmental problems, both local and global. Students will have opportunities to investigate cases in which they have particular interest.

SIS-620 Environmental Security in Asia (3)

This course considers environmental issues seen both as causes of conflict and as preconditions for human security, or ultimate security. Another dimension of this course concerns security institutions such as defense agencies and the military, and the relationship between war and the environment. This course asks students to consider: what the proper role of such institutions is in dealing with environmental threats; and how are we to sort out the disparate interpretations of the roles of the environment in security and of security institutions in the environment.

SIS-620 Climate Change and Violent Conflict (3)

The course examines historic and emerging issues in environmental conflict and theories regarding this complex relationship. Key areas of focus are on climate change and resource use as pathways to conflict. Case studies are used to show the policy challenges differing countries and peoples face.

SIS-620 Future of Environmentalism (3)

This course explores contemporary challenges facing the environmental movement. It focuses on the ways the movement can respond to the radically changing character of the natural world, in the face of greater human technological reach, and multicultural understandings of the place of nature in environmental thought and practice.

SIS-620 Sustainable Design and LEED Training (3)

Following the structure of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for New Construction rating system, this course combines discussions of theories on sustainable design; field work on specific environmental topics ranging from sustainable sites through innovation in design; and directed study of the LEED Reference Guide for New Construction, with the goal of preparing to take the LEED Accredited Professional (AP) Examination and achieving the LEED AP credential.

SIS-620 Policy Analysis for Global Environmental Policy (3)

Provides critical literacy in the major policy-analytic techniques used in environmental policy, including but not limited to cost-benefit analysis, comparative risk assessment, impact assessment, program evaluation, participatory appraisal, multistakeholder processes, sustainability indicators, and social marketing. Emphasis is placed on analytic techniques most commonly used in and around international institutions, as well as those found in civil-society and multistakeholder contexts. Usually offered in spring.

SIS-649 Environment and Development (3)

An overview of this newly emerging multidisciplinary field. Focuses on debates concerning various human-made or development-related root causes of natural-resource degradation in the Third World. Special attention is paid to the relationship between the poor and the environment. Also looks critically at recent innovative policy responses attempting to link environment and development. Usually offered in the spring.

SIS-650 Global Economy and Sustainable Development (3)

This course looks at the interface between economic globalization (trade and investment especially) and development defined in social, environmental and economic terms. The course is a foundation course for the ID globalization and development concentration. Beyond analyzing how the global economy works, the course explores various initiatives to make it work better for workers, communities, the environment, the poor and marginalized – for example, through such initiatives as voluntary "corporate codes of conduct" (including fair-trade organizations) and regulatory "social clauses" to condition trade and investment on governments' and/or corporations’ respect for worker rights and environmental standards.  As such, the course stands as a foundation course to the "corporate responsibility” and “corporate accountability" arenas and to initiatives for a just world economy through “alter-globalization.”  SIS 637 is a prerequisite but may be waived for GEP/NRSD students with a suitable background. Usually offered each fall and spring semester.

SIS 620-Building a Post-Carbon World (3)

The world needs, for a host of pressing reasons, to wean itself from fossil fuels. The need is clear, but the path less so. This practice-oriented course will examine the options available for constructing a post-carbon world. The course is project-based, and is built around engagement with real-world examples of individuals and institutions moving beyond carbon.

SIS 596-Practice of Environmentalism (3)

This course brings together students and faculty in environmental science, international politics, and media production to forge an interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental action. Students learn field research methods, policy analysis, and documentary communication techniques. Each student, as part of an interdisciplinary team, produces a major media project focusing on a particular environmental challenge. Students also participate in a mandatory two-week international fieldwork component, to explore firsthand the challenges of promoting ecological sustainability in a specific setting.

SIS 663-Washington Environmental Workshop (3)

A capstone seminar in which students conduct original research on domestic and international environmental policy and politics. Explores contemporary environmental issues such as economic and ecological globalization, information technologies and environmental protection, social and ecological evolution, the place of humans in the natural world, postmodern challenges to environmentalism, post-colonial environmentalism, and environmental security. Usually offered every spring.

SIS-696 Skills Institutes (1)

The GEP program occasionally offers intensive training workshops or “skills institutes” that stress professional skills and practical tools for environmental professionals. Institutes are one-credit courses that typically require a two-day time commitment.

CSC-610 Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (3)

A geographic information system (GIS) is a system of hardware, software, data, people, organizations, and institutional arrangements for collecting, storing, analyzing, and disseminating information about areas of the earth. This course provides an introduction to GIS, GIS software, and applications of GIS. Usually offered every fall.

ECON-579 Environmental Economics (3)

An analysis of the relationship between economic activity and the natural environment from both mainstream and ecological perspectives. Policy measures for regulating pollution and managing common property resources are explored, including emission taxes, tradable pollution permits, and property rights solutions. Applications to global environmental issues such as climate change and local environmental problems are emphasized. Students gain a understanding of the meaning of sustainable development and the types of policies required to active it. Usually offered every fall. Prerequisite: ECON-603 or ECON-500 or ECON-703.

ECON-603 Introduction to Economic Theory (3)

The major analytical tools of price and income theory. No credit toward degrees in the Department of Economics. Usually offered every term.

ENVS-580 Environmental Science I (3)

Estimation of environmental interactions through the formulation and analysis of simple, mathematical models enabling exploration of the consequences of a variety of assumptions and conditions. Includes measurement, steady-state modes, and thermodynamics. Usually offered every fall.

ENVS-581 Environmental Science II (3)

Estimation of environmental interactions through the formulation and analysis of simple mathematical models enabling exploration of the consequences of a variety of assumptions and conditions. Includes non-steady box models, biogeochemistry, and climatology. Usually offered every spring.

LAW-618 International Environmental Law (3)

A contemporary perspective on international environmental law focusing on specific environmental threats and the most recent manifestations of the law. The course will include case studies of actual investigations such as global warming and sea level rise; export and import of hazardous waste; the problem of "ghost" driftnets abandoned in the global commons of our marine environment; the endangered African elephant; continued whaling by Japan and Iceland; and the protection of the aboriginal Penan Tribe in Malaysia. Recent manifestations of international environmental law include the Declaration of The Hague and the proposal for a new organization to be known as GLOBE. Attention also will be given to the considerable body of environmental law in the European Community, the general foundations of international law, and the relationship to human rights law and international trade law.

LAW-629 Environmental Law (3)

An overview of environmental law with particular emphasis on the administrative law background; the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended; the governance of public lands; and air and water pollution control.

PUAD-601 Methods of Problem Solving I (3)

The use of analytical techniques to solve problems in policy analysis and public administration. Defining problems, choosing appropriate techniques, and understanding the limits of quantitative approaches. Usually offered every term.

SIS-600 Quantitative Analysis in International Affairs (3)

Introduction to research design, quantitative measurement, statistical analysis, and computer use for international relations research. Usually offered every term.