The Distribution -- "Perspectives on the Natural and Fabricated Worlds"

CLA Document

Common Learning Objective #2 in Foundations for the Future calls us to a greater "Understanding [of] Our Natural and Fabricated Worlds," pointing to the connections among the human, natural, and fabricated worlds: "Bucknell's students must be led to consider the economic, environmental, and social influences and effects of technological and scientific worlds even as they comprehend them on their own terms. Likewise, such varied voices as those of the poet, the moral philosopher, and the feminist critic should also inform students' views of the natural and created worlds and their responsibilities to them."

Courses meeting this requirement would focus on (a) the influence and impact of technology on society and the environment or (b) principles that help us to live harmoniously with the natural world. Some courses would focus on the operations of natural systems and point out the effects of human interactions with these systems. Other courses would introduce students to new developments in technology that promise and/or threaten sweeping changes in social life and our understanding of ourselves and may have profound environmental consequences. Other courses might focus on the history of human attempts to understand our role in the natural and fabricated worlds and on the ways in which we have constructed our relationships, both of dominance and of interdependence, with these worlds. The appropriate courses could be science, engineering, social science, or humanities, or cross these divisional boundaries.