SWITZERLAND

The Swiss Life: Local Resiliency and Sustainability in Action 

SUMMER SEMESTER 2021 COURSE with SHORT-TERM TRAVEL COMPONENT

Students should verify that they are eligible to travel to Switzerland before applying.

Instructors: Professor David Murphy

Dates: May 3 - June 4, 2021

Listing: Environmental Studies

Units: 2 SLU Units (7.2 credit hours)

Course Length: 5 weeks (3 weeks on-campus and 2 weeks in Switzerland)

Apply to 'The Swiss Life', Switzerland, summer 2021

Course description: The Swiss Life: Local Resiliency and Sustainability in Action ( Environmental Studies)

If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that our economies and societal structure are fragile. Part of the reason for this fragility, is that globalized economies have stretched a just-in-time market delivery system such that the basic needs for our existence, food, energy, and even water, sometimes require a complicated network of delivery systems to operate smoothly. The coronavirus pandemic, oil shortages, and climate change, for example, pose existential threats to that system, and therefore to our basic way of life. Switzerland, by contrast, is a land-locked country in a mountainous area of Europe that has embraced sustainability for over two decades, and as a result has created a resilient society focused on local production. This course will focus on how the Swiss created a resilient society, asking fundamental questions like: what is the relation between sustainability and resilience? What is systems thinking? What constitutes a socioecological system? How is equity related to resilience? This course will begin by addressing those questions in a three-week in-person seminar at St. Lawrence University followed by two weeks in Switzerland visualizing first-hand how the concepts discussed in the first part of the course have (or have not) been applied in Swiss society. We will do this by viewing the Swiss socioecological system through the food-energy-water nexus. We will spend the first few days biking through the Swiss countryside visiting various food production systems in the Burgdorf region of Switzerland. We will then examine water issues in Switzerland by visiting the Aletsch Glacier and discussing climate change with local experts. Lastly, we will examine energy production systems by visiting a hydropower facility in the mountains and by discussing energy systems with a local expert. Students should expect to be active every day in Switzerland, traversing the countryside by train, bike, bus or hiking.