In this seminar, students will examine texts and works of art that have profoundly shaped the world we live in. The course is divided into four units: Models of Inquiry; the Impact of Science and Technology; Social Philosophy and Civic Engagement; and Art in the World. The course is supplemented with a plenary lecture by a distinguished honors faculty speaker.

Through this seminar, students develop an in-depth knowledge of and articulate vocabulary for the significant and diverse ways that humans value the natural world - utilitarian, scientific, aesthetic, naturalistic, symbolic, ethical, and spiritual. We use these different typologies of human environmental values as frameworks for readings and discussion, extending our examination to historical and cultural variations in values, competing perspectives of the natural world, and other value concepts, including intrinsic and transformative value.