Abstract

The vision and mission of the School of Science and Technology (SST) at Loma Linda University is to develop an interdisciplinary approach to doing science and providing opportunities for graduate and professional education within the context of major global and societal issues of poverty, health and disease, environmental degradation, and social inequality.

Within this project, our specific academic teaching goal will be to develop and implement a series of new interdisciplinary courses focused on applied Earth system science that bring together graduate students in biology, geology, social policy, public health, and environmental health programs.   We intend to first serve our existing on-campus graduate and undergraduate students in geology, biology, public health, medicine, and social policy.  But in implementing the courses they will be designed from the beginning for use via Loma Linda University’s established distance education network and extension programs in China, Chile, Russia, Kenya, Mexico, and elsewhere.  We believe the market potential is significant, and there is a great need from our various constituencies for the skills, concepts, and tools Earth system science can bring into our network.

Another primary goal will be to develop, test, and evaluate for pedagogical effectiveness, web-ready learning resources and analytic tools that better serve our unique working professional and adult learner student population via distance education as well as on-campus teaching.  We will also move toward multilingual access to resources, e.g., several of our staff and graduate students speak and write languages from Africa, Latin America, and Asia.  We will leverage that strength for the broader benefit of ESSE 21.

• Description of Course Sequence (ESSC 541-2 and 575)
• Revised LECTURE & LAB Schedule
• LAB WORK Schedule
• Course descriptions and prerequisites (core ESS modeling sequence)
• The field course (ESSC 575) offered in 2005 (note course overview) will focus on conservation biology and sustainable development problems on the Mosquito Coast of Honduras—see participating NGO partners as well as key faculty and students.
• More web-teaching resources and online courses.