Environmental Impact Statement

This course, created by Sookyung Chang, has students apply knowledge acquired previous science classes in the composition of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on a current proposed action at a specific site, especially in energy production. This course, which is for non-science majors, places a greater emphasis on critical thinking and data analysis than scientific principles. The units covered in this course are earth, air, water, climate, energy, food and agriculture, health and human population, environmental systems, urbanization, waste management, environmental policy, and conservation.

The course begins with an introduction to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and follows with two two-hour lectures and one two-hour lab per week. The course assumes that students have prior knowledge of competency is online research; data analysis and graphing; familiarity with APA and MLA styles. Upon completion of this course, students will understand how environmental policy is formed, know what the NEPA and EIS is; and what issues are currently affecting their local environment. 

Lesson Contents: 

For orientation purposes, viewers should begin with Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Lesson Plan.pdf, which offers a description of the lesson in full, as well as an overview of topics covered, and all learning outcomes. 

Below is a list of the files contained within the attached .zip folder. The size of each file is included in parenthesis.

Environmental_Impact_Statement.zip

• Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Lesson Plan.pdf (33 KB)
• Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Powerpoint [Compatibility Mode].pdf (617 KB)
• NEPA flowchart.pdf (100 KB)
• Project Rubric.pdf (21 KB)
• Web Resources.pdf (45 KB)