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The field of environmental justice is riven with conflicts over the scope, measurement, evaluation, nature and seriousness of environmental problems. This course takes a seminar approach to develop options for resolving environmental justice problems using both practical and theoretical approaches for communication, understanding and analysis to bridge interests, reconcile differences, reduce confusions and improve environmental decision making. The course will investigate and evaluate the effectiveness and possibilities of policies that can highlight, educate and develop understanding among communities concerned with environmental issues. The course will focus on how communication can encourage discussion about potential causes and responses to environmental justice concerns. A primary area of the course will be to examine how disenfranchised groups understand environmental justice within a hierarchy of community concerns, accumulated experience and particular histories within communities. The course has an applied aspect and will look at a local manifestation of how environmental justice is inseparable from broader components of justice such as living and working conditions, violence, powerlessness, marginalization, and processes producing and reproducing inequities. Offered online, annually. Prerequisite: 420.614 Environmental Policymaking and Policy Analysis, equivalent course, or experience.