New and familiar Environmental Studies courses offer an interdisciplinary approach

The Environmental Studies major at Yale-NUS College seeks to combine academic breadth and analytic depth to foster deep learning of and critical engagement with a variety of environmental challenges to human and planetary well-being. The major offers an interdisciplinary studies approach to study the environment, building a broad base of understanding for students to emerge as reflexive agents of change in the social and environmental climate of today.

In two courses taught last semester, Environmental Studies faculty choose to weave an interdisciplinary approach into the coursework.

Since January 2022, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences (Environmental Studies) Sudatta Ray has been teaching Powering the Planet, a module which offers an overview of the energy landscape and explores the complex challenges involved with transitioning towards a cleaner energy paradigm.

Other than covering the more technical aspects of energy, such as the physics of how electricity is generated and distributed, the module also looks at financing and markets, and challenges relating to governance. Asst Prof Ray also hopes to spark discussions on how transitioning towards a cleaner energy paradigm can be attentive to issues of equity, and how we can serve the needs of marginalised communities across the world in the process.

Environmental Studies major Ryota Wong (Class of 2023) who took the module in the past semester felt that the module was very “application-based”, with the assignments attempting to mimic what it would actually be like to work in the policy sector. Students were tasked to write policy memos with recommendations, doing mathematics calculations to assess the financial feasibility of switching to renewable energy, just to name a few.

He found that this approach was “refreshing”, because the class was put in a position where they were tasked to attempt to solve real life problems. Students were required to analyse problems from different, multifaceted perspectives, and wield an arsenal of different tools to address them.

“You need the sciences to create renewable energy technology that works, mathematics and economics to know if the implementation makes sense financially, and the social sciences to understand human behaviour on the ground,” said Ryota.

Ryota felt the interdisciplinary and application-based approach was made possible due to the diverse background of Asst Prof Ray, who spent a fair amount of time working with the government, environmental think tanks and not-for-profits before moving into academia.

Asst Prof Ray conducting focus group discussions with women farmers in Koraput, India. Image taken in 2018, and provided by Asst Prof Ray.

As an interdisciplinary researcher, Asst Prof Ray felt that Yale-NUS College, with its emphasis on broad-based interdisciplinary learning across different academic disciplines, provides a great environment for her to adopt this innovative teaching approach. “I am driven by the outcomes that I want to achieve through my work, in my case, achieving a clean energy transition that is equitable. I find colleagues and students at Yale-NUS similarly driven, which can be hard to find across the academic community.”

Reconnaissance trip to the Southern Islands as part of the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis exercise in the Ecological Economics module. Image provided by Assoc Prof Montefrio.

Ecological Economics is another module offered that takes a distinctly interdisciplinary approach. Taught by Associate Professor of Social Sciences (Environmental Studies) and Head of Studies for Environmental Studies Marvin Montefrio, this module is well-established in the Environmental Studies programme.

The module seeks to explore fundamental questions related to economic systems, such as economic growth and its limits, the valuation of ecosystems, the complexities of human decision-making, and the inevitabilities of surprises in social and ecological systems.

Assoc Prof Montefrio believes that dominant ways of studying economic systems remain insufficient in truly capturing their complexities, and hopes that this module will help students appreciate the complexities, strengths and weaknesses of mainstream economics.

The course invites students to learn to interrogate assumptions embedded within mainstream economics, and learn to ask how and why economic activities impact environments and our own lives.

The course exposes students beyond typical economic concepts (such as supply and demand curves, cost-benefit analysis and market failures) by introducing them to, for example, the laws of thermodynamics, ecological concepts of resilience and emergence, and even the philosophical underpinnings of modern science. 

Explaining the most salient attributes of the Yale-NUS Environmental Studies programme, Assoc Prof Montefrio said, “The programme is unique because it offers courses not just in the environmental sciences, but also in policy and critical social sciences, and most importantly the burgeoning field of the environmental humanities––which includes history, philosophy and the arts.”

“I am also proud to say that we’ve developed modules that are inherently interdisciplinary in nature, such as Introduction to Environmental Studies and Singapore’s Biodiversity: Past, Present, and Future, a module co-taught by Assistant Professors Eunice Tan (a biologist) and Anthony Medrano (a historian).”

This stands in contrast to environmental studies programmes in many other parts of the world which still tend to lean heavier towards the natural sciences. The Environmental Studies Programme at Yale-NUS College strives to achieve a balance among the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.

Assoc Prof Montefrio hopes to continue evolving the Environmental Studies programme in the remaining years of the College. He said: “Experiential learning is an important part of learning in environmental studies. Our modules are already known for experiential learning, but we plan to provide even more experiential learning opportunities in the last two academic years.”

“We also plan to offer modules that directly tackle the specific issues of the current moment, such as addressing climate anxiety and decolonising the environmental scholarship.”