Most often environmental professionals face problems and apply well-developed planning, management, engineering, and scientific principles to address their problems.  The premise of this course is that most environmental problems are caused by human behavior and have long-term implications.  To address and create long-term solutions to these problems, behavior needs to change.  The newly emerging field of environmental communication brings together a set of behavior change tools that can help with environmental enforcement, compliance with regulations, and desired changes in behavior when no policy or law exists to force that behavior.  Students will be exposed to the very fast growing set of resources – papers, publications, case studies, people, and programs that offer assistance in addressing behavior change questions. Students will develop a plan targeted to one specific audience and aimed at changing one behavior.

The course is seven weeks in length and is taught in an entirely online, distance learning format, with both asynchronous and synchronous portions. No campus visits are required.  Depending upon enrollment, we anticipate offering 1 hourlong session each week that you can interact with instructors and classmates via Zoom.