GDEV 5680 - Environmental Decision Making

(CU-CEL, CU-SBY)

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with GDEV 3680.

K. Waldman.

The objective of this course is to provide an interdisciplinary introduction to the science underlying decision making with an emphasis on environmental decisions. The course will introduce the basics of information processing and demonstrate how and why we as humans often make ‘bad’ decisions. They will study how policy makers are able to intervene and influence people’s behavior. Throughout the course students will work in groups to try to influence an environmental behavior around campus or town- developing an experiment and executing it. In the process students will learn how to write up an academic study that provides rational, justification, and analysis of the results of your experiment.

Outcome 1: Use the lens of behavioral science to understand environmental problems and the implications for sustainability.

Outcome 2: Articulate the core drivers of environmental decision-making and barriers to pro-environmental behavior.

Outcome 3: Develop a behavioral experiment to test interventions for increasing sustainable behavior in coordination with a community partner.

Outcome 4: Assess the behavioral outcomes of various environmental policy interventions.

Outcome 5: Write a clear academic manuscript contextualizing and analyzing the results of an experimental study.

Outcome 6: Apply decision science to their own academic research.

Outcome 7: Develop and write an effective research proposal for their own empirical study.