Program Overview

Environment & Sustainability Program

MSSE Learning Goals

The MSSE Program Learning Objectives (PLOs) are supported with Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). The four PLOs are to:

1. Evaluate sustainability and environmental problems and solutions using self-reflection, critical thinking, and systems thinking.
2. Analyze sustainability and environmental problems and solutions using scientific, scalar, cause-and-effect and other approaches.
3. Interpret sustainability and environmental problems and solutions using established disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods.
4. Create professional oral, visual, and written communication about sustainability and environmental problems and solutions.

The SLOs are based on the book "Critical Skills for Environmental Professionals: Putting Knowledge into Practice" by Pontius and McIntosh. The fourteen SLOs are:

1. Self-Reflection
2. Problem Framing
3. Navigating the Literature
4. Critical Thinking
5. Scientific Inquiry
6. Quantitative Literacy
7. Linking Cause and Effect
8. Environmental Problem Solving
9. Frameworks
10. Environmental Communication
11. Systems Thinking
12. Working Across Scales
13. Sustainability Science
14. Interdisciplinary Tools

Descriptions and rubrics for all the SLOs are provided, with most adapted from the Association of American Colleges and Universities VALUE Rubrics. The MSSE program has made some slight revisions to the titles, contents, and/or rubrics, and added SLO 1 and SLO 9.