Syllabi and Course Descriptions
On this page you may access a collection of syllabi contributed by instructors who currently teach courses that integrate psychology and environmental issues. These instructors are full of great ideas, many of which do not appear elsewhere in the manual. Click on the email link to contact an instructor. Some of the syllabi may be downloaded from this page in .pdf format; others are accessible by clicking on the weblink listed.
Courses are listed by title in alphabetical order. Click on a title below or scroll down the page to see the instructor’s course description and instructor contact info.
Behavior and Environment (R. DeYoung)
Conservation Behavior Seminar (R. DeYoung)
Conservation Psychology (G. Myers)
Ecopsychology (P. Kahn)
Ecopsychology (C. Chalquist)
Environmental Psychology (C. Brick)
Environmental Psychology (K. Hamilton)
Environmental Psychology & The Wilderness Experience (D. Campbell)
Environmental Psychology at Rocky Mountain National Park (D. McMillan)
Human Dimensions of Conservation (J. Fraser)
Introduction to Ecopsychology (A. Fisher)
Planetary Psychology (C. Chalquist)
Psychology and Sustainability (M. Mills)
Psychology for Sustainability (S. Koger)
Psychology for Sustainability (B. Scott)
Psychology of Environmental Issues (K. Lacasse)
Psychology of Environmental Issues (B. Malt)
Psychology of Environmental Stewardship (R. DeYoung)
Psychology of Sustainable Behavior (C. Manning)
Psychotherapy and a Changing Planet: Climate Psychology (L. Davenport)
The Psychology of Sustainability in Germany and Denmark (E. Amel & C. Manning)
Behavior and Environment
Raymond DeYoung, Ph.D. [rdeyoung@umich.edu]
Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources & Environment
University of Michigan
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Introduction to environmental psychology that examines human-environment interactions with a focus on environmental stewardship. Course develops an information processing model of human nature and uses this model to explore human behavior, the settings they prefer and best function in, and how they maintain mental clarity and attentional vitality.
Conservation Behavior Seminar
Raymond DeYoung, Ph.D. [rdeyoung@umich.edu]
Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources & Environment
University of Michigan
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Responding to climate disruption, resource limits and energy descent will require behavior change on a massive scale and over a long period of time. One implication of this new bio-physical reality is the need for each one of us to become behavioral entrepreneurs. Many new, and newly re-learned skills and behaviors will be needed in order for us to respond well to the coming downshift. But none are more central than the abilities to cleverly problem-solve, to plan and manage our behavior, to be resourceful, to be supportive of others, and to cope with the emotions resulting from our losing either an affluent lifestyle or the hope that perpetual growth will one day provide us all with material affluence.
Conservation Psychology
Gene Myers, Ph.D.
[gene.myers@wwu.edu]
Professor
Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington Univ.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: A combined upper division elective/required course for our M.Ed. in Env. Education program, this course is aimed at environmental educators. I have taught it many different ways. It always has a practicum component involving working with young people in 1:1 or small group situations, interviewing or in other ways placing my students in the learner/researcher-practitioner role. In terms of academic content, I usually aim to highlight parts of the research bases for the following discourses / paradigms of environmental education: Systematic behavior change campaigns; democratic/ participatory collective action; and culture & connection to nature and place. The formation of an environmental morality is often a focus as it is a special interest for me. I usually manage to invite in one or two colleagues, take students to a conference, or in other ways expose them to the emerging network of conservation psychologists & related folk.
Ecopsychology
Peter Kahn, Ph.D. [pkahn@uw.edu]
Professor of Psychology
University of Washington
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Ecopsychology seeks (a) to reshape modern psychology by showing that it cannot stand apart from an intimate human connection with the natural environment, and (b) to integrate our connection with nature with our scientific culture and technological selves.
As a species, we came of age with nature, and a need for nature still resides within the architecture of our bodies and minds. Abundant research demonstrates physical and psychological benefits of interacting with nature. And ecological sustainability may well be impossible without people experiencing nature, and feeling its depth, space, and bounty. At this moment in history – as we degrade, pollute, and increasingly destroy so much of the natural world so quickly, and live in increasingly sophisticated and pervasive digital worlds – ecopsychology seeks a new vision of the human-nature relationship.
Ecopsychology
Craig Chalquist, Ph.D. [craig@chalquist.com]
Core Faculty Professor
California Institute of Integral Studies
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Ecopsychology rose in the mid-1990s after decades of thoughtful transdisciplinary inquiry into how mind and surroundings cleave together. Indigenous in ancestry, transpersonal in scope, qualitative in method, and critical in social commentary, ecopsychology sought to heal an ancient legacy of dualism that split self from world, psyche from place, thought from passion, and mind from body. Today’s ecotherapists have glimpsed some of the shadows cast by this ambitious endeavor as the movement finally begins to go mainstream.
This course will offer an overview and update on the field of ecopsychology, look deeply into where some of its shadows might fall, and suggest new pathways for exploration that trace the strong ties connecting us to place, matter, planet, and each other. Two of these pathways, ecotherapy and terrapsychology, will allow us to follow these ties farther down into the depths where psyche is indistinguishable from world.
Environmental Psychology
Cameron Brick, Ph.D. [cb954@cam.ac.uk]
Postdoctoral Fellow, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course addresses how individuals think about and react to environmental problems from littering to climate change, with a focus on individual behaviors. The course also includes how natural and built environments affect mood, performance, and health. Topics include risk perceptions, group identity, social influence, and the interdisciplinary challenge of collective action problems.
Environmental Psychology
Kevin Hamilton, Ph.D. [kevin.hamilton@kpu.ca]
Professor
Kwantlen Polytechnic University – Richmond Campus
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course critically examines the field of environmental psychology. You will learn about the interrelationships between ourselves and the environmental systems in which we live and work. The focus is on both theory and application. Specific topics addressed include: the history and scope of environmental psychology; theories of environment and behaviour; environmental stress; natural environments; built environments; designing for humans; specialized living and working environments and behavioural change in relation to contemporary global environmental issues and issues of sustainability.
Environmental Psychology & the Wilderness Experience
David Campbell, Ph.D. [dec1@humboldt.edu]
Professor
Humboldt State University
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Exploration of behavior-environment relationships. Ecopsychology, wilderness experience, and appraisal of our natural environment. Analysis of the social environment (privacy, territoriality, crowding). Evaluation of the built environment (home, workplace, community).
Environmental Psychology at Rocky Mountain National Park
Donna K. McMillan, Ph.D. [mcmillan@stolaf.edu]
Associate Professor of Psychology
St. Olaf College
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In our month together, we will be delving into the human relationship with the rest of the natural world. We will particularly explore 1) subjective experience in nature and 2) empirical research about people’s relationship with the natural environment, but we will also consider 3) how cultural factors and 4) different systems and institutions influence this aspect of our lives. I hope it will prove to be exciting and meaning for you to explore in-depth your own and others’ relationships to nature. While the broad subfield of environmental psychology examines interactions of human beings with all sorts of environments – including social and built environments, in this course we will be focusing particularly on our relationship to the natural an environment.
Human Dimensions of Conservation
John Fraser, Ph.D. [jfraser@newknowledge.org]
President & CEO, New Knowledge Organization, Ltd.
Adjunct Lecturer, Hunter College of City University New York
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is premised on the idea that conservation will only be achieved through change in how people choose to act toward the environment. It takes as self-evident the principle that that natural systems and human systems are integrally linked to one another. The goal of conservation psychology is to promote conservation through the scientific study of cognitive, affective and behavioral processes. On completion of this course, it is expected that students will be conversant in the basic constructs informing conservation psychology and understand how to use this framework in conservation recommendations, to effectively criticize conservation strategies through the lens of human dimensions research, to recommend research strategies to address deficiencies in a conservation programs, and to understand the link between successful policy strategies and sound psychological theory.
Introduction to Ecopsychology
Andy Fisher, Ph.D. [andy.fisher@uvm.edu]
Lecturer, Environmental Studies
University of Vermont
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to the full sweep of what is currently meant by the term ecopsychology. Ecopsychologists assert that the relationship between humans and nature is definitive of human psychology, viewing all psychological and spiritual matters within the context of our membership in the natural world. By expanding the focus of psychology to include the relationship between humans and nature, they aim not only to develop a truer picture of human psychology but also to draw attention to the psychological dimensions of the ecological crisis. As a field, ecopsychology is increasingly making its way into the academy, consulting room, and popular imagination.
Covering the psychological, philosophical, practical, and critical dimensions of ecopsychology, the course aims to foster an appreciation for the significance and exciting nature of this new field. Ecopsychology has gained popularity in the form of “ecotherapy.” This includes wilderness therapy, nature-inclusive psychotherapy, group practices to help face “eco-anxiety” and “eco-despair,” and other nature-connecting activities. Beyond such practice, however, a number of thinkers have developed eco-centric psychological theories that fundamentally reconceptualise humans, nature, and psyche. Ecopsychology has, moreover, been envisioned as an ecologically transformed and explicitly political psychology that is dedicated to creating the subjective conditions for an ecological society. The course will progress through these various topics, allowing students to determine for themselves the relevance of ecopsychology to their own interests.
Planetary Psychology
Craig Chalquist, Ph.D. [craig@chalquist.com]
Core Faculty Professor
California Institute of Integral Studies
COURSE DESCRIPTION: We have all heard about “green” this and that as well as grim news about multiple environmental crises—but almost no public discourse about how all this arises from, impacts, and is seen through the dimension of human psychology. Psychology itself, in its mainstream applications, has been from the beginning primarily a psychology of departure: a psychology of alienation from the elements, from the natural world, and ultimately from ourselves and each other.
This course poses the question: What would a psychology of homecoming look like? Through the lens of this question we will survey various perspectives and approaches that deal with the psychological dimension of our relationship with the environment, including mainstream ecology, deep ecology, bioregionalism, ecopsychology, ecotherapy (applied ecopsychology), integral ecology, and the relatively new field of terrapsychology, the deep study of our psychological connections to specific places. Using seminar-style lecture, film, and various exercises, we will also explore different modes of ecological homecoming.
Psychology and Sustainability
Michael E. Mills, Ph.D. [memills@gmail.com]
Associate Professor of Psychology
Loyola Marymount University
COURSE DESCRIPTION:This course examines human behavior and human nature in the context of ecological factors. The focus of the course will be on how psychology might help contribute to solve, or to mitigate, ecological problems that are likely to occur in this century, including depletion of natural resources (especially fossil fuels), human population overshoot of the planetary carrying capacity, climate change, species extinction, etc.
Psychology for Sustainability
Susan M. Koger, Ph.D. [skoger@willamette.edu]
Professor of Psychology
Willamette University
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Environmental degradation (e.g., resource overconsumption, pollution, climate change) is the most pressing problem confronting contemporary society: Without a livable planet, humans, like other animals, cannot survive. Because human behavior is at the root of the problem, Psychology, the science of behavior, offers important insights for understanding and changing unsustainable individual and societal systems. Due to the applied nature of the material, a service learning component is included.
Psychology for Sustainability
Britain A. Scott, Ph.D. [BASCOTT@stthomas.edu]
Professor of Psychology
University of St. Thomas
COURSE DESCRIPTION: We commonly use the label “environmental problems” to describe issues such as pollution, species extinction, and climate change, yet it is not really the environment that has the problems. What ties all these issues together is their cause: human behavior. Particularly for the last 150 years, we humans have been behaving in ways that are ecologically unsustainable. Because the real problem is destructive human behaviors – and the underlying thoughts, attitudes, feelings, values, and decisions that lead to these behaviors – psychologists are increasingly applying their expertise to these issues. Drawing from work in environmental psychology, ecopsychology, and conservation psychology we will address how psychological theory and research can be applied to promote a sustainable future and explore psychological aspects of the reciprocal relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world.
Psychology of Environmental Issues
Katherine Lacasse, Ph.D. [klacasse@ric.edu]
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Rhode Island College
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Environmental issues, such as climate change and the overconsumption of resources, are some of the most pressing problems facing our world. Many environmental psychologists specifically investigate how people think about and respond to these global challenges. In this course, we will discuss how psychological mechanisms help explain the roots of various environmental problems, and can also be used when designing interventions to address these issues. We will focus on both individual processes (cognitive processes, motivation, behavior change, connection with nature) and social processes (cultural worldviews, group relationships, media messages, social movements).
Psychology of Environmental Issues
Barbara Malt, Ph.D. [bcm0@lehigh.edu]
Professor of Psychology
Lehigh University
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Environmental problems and solutions begin with the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individual people. We will examine how people think and feel about aspects of the natural environment, what psychological processes shape those thoughts and feelings, and how the outcomes of those processes drive behaviors with positive or negative consequences for the environment.
Psychology of Environmental Stewardship
Raymond DeYoung, Ph.D. [rdeyoung@umich.edu]
Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources & Environment
University of Michigan
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Explores research on psychology of environmental stewardship and creates a toolbox of approaches for promoting durable conservation behavior.
Psychology of Sustainable Behavior
Christie Manning, Ph.D. [cmanning@macalester.edu]
Visiting Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies
Macalester College
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is an introduction to the psychological study of sustainable human behavior. Effective solutions to environmental problems require that we understand and address the behaviors that lead to them. In this course we will use psychological principles, theories, and methods to examine the reciprocal relationship between human beings and the natural world. We will discuss the complex nature of environmental problems and review important psychological and social factors that underlie a range of sustainable and non-sustainable behaviors. We will cover approaches that encourage sustainable actions and apply these approaches in three class projects: a self-change project, a community-change project, and a communication/education project.
Psychotherapy and a Changing Planet: Climate Psychology
Leslie Davenport, Ph.D. [office@lesliedavenport.com],
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Founding member, Institute for Health and Healing, California Pacific Medical Center
Instructor, California Institute of Integral Studies
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Climate scientists estimate that 200 million Americans will touched by significant psychological distress from climate-related events in the upcoming years, and yet little attention is given to how to treat the profound mental health suffering that results from climate change. The U.N. sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that “The physical and economic destruction (of climate change) surely boggles the mind but what is not being addressed are the human psychological consequences of all this devastation.
And yet the contribution of the mental health field goes beyond coping, to being part of an interdisciplinary effort effort to mitigate and slow the progression of climate chaos. The field of psychology is powerful in:
- addressing the emotional underpinnings of climate denial and disavowal
- understanding motivators for how people change
- identifying the most effective communication strategies
- building resiliency when individuals and communities are faced with immediate and long term climate chaos that provoke trauma, grief, anxiety and depression
- promoting the therapeutic benefits of empowered participation and engagements in climate solutions.
This course will introduce comprehensive strategies and resources for mental health professionals, addressing key clinical themes specific to the psychological features and impact of climate change.
The Psychology of Sustainability in Germany and Denmark
Elise Amel, Ph.D. [elamel@stthomas.edu]
Professor of Psychology and Director of Environmental Studies
University of St. Thomas
Christie Manning, Ph.D. [cmanning@macalester.edu]
Visiting Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies
Macalester College
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The Psychology of Sustainability is the scientific study of the interplay between human behavior and the natural environment. Although emerging now as an important field of research in the United States, it is well established in Germany (Umweltpsychologie) and other European countries. We begin the course by examining the scientific evidence regarding environmental issues including global climate change, industrial food systems, and depletion of natural resources like fresh water, oil, and metal deposits. Then we examine psychological factors associated with decision making and conservation-related behavior. We will cover such topics as norms, values, and incentives and why they may strengthen or weaken the link between our attitudes and behaviors. We close by examining interventions designed to change human behavior. Locating the course in German cities such as Hamburg and Berlin as well as the Danish city of Copenhagen will provide ample opportunity to examine important concepts by directly observing how these strategies have been applied.