EDS333 Practice-based Field Course

Course is under development. Details will be published autumn 2025.

This course is a 10 credit, practice-based field course for NMBU Masters students, organized in collaboration with American University’s School of International Services. Up to 15 students from NMBU and 10 students from AU will participate. The location for the field course can change annually. The topic for 2026 is ‘Geopolitical Ecology’, which extends political ecology’s focus on the power struggles that lie at the root of local environmental conflicts to the realm of global political transitions.

Topic from 2024

The Washington Environmental Governance Workshop exposes participants to a range of environmental policymaking and policy-influencing institutions in Washington DC, including government agencies and NGOs. We meet environmental professionals in their home offices to discuss the missions and strategies of the diverse actors who create, influence, and implement international and domestic US environmental policy and programs.

The course will be supported by a grant from the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills.

Learning outcomes are under development.

Learning outcomes from 2024:

• Building knowledge on what makes each environmental institution that we visit unique: What is its history, underlying philosophy, culture, mission, strategy ("theory of social change"), program scope, financing sources, membership base (if any), evaluation methods (if any)?
• Learn to apply theoretical knowledge of environmental governance organizations and strategies for activism to empirical cases.
• Develop understanding of what strategies lead to effective activism and/or effective policy making and implementation.
• Understand the relationships among environmental institutions and between such institutions and other types of institutions with different mandates.
• Oral Presentation: Students are expected to be able to ask well-informed questions and engage in intelligent discussion. Preparation readings and website study is mandatory.
• Written Presentation: Preparing written reactions to the visits as well as a final 10-page reflection paper.