3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

How does water shape the health of Baltimore and its environs? To answer that, we can expand our idea of “health” to investigate water’s influence on individuals, neighborhoods, industries, and the Chesapeake ecosystem at different times and over different scales. We will approach Baltimore’s water from an interdisciplinary perspective, with attention to (1) the concepts that scientists, engineers, and humanists have employed to comprehend water’s influence on the urban ecosystem, (2) the policies that have shaped water’s costs, distribution, and use, and (3) the disasters and injustices that have affected our region’s human and non-human inhabitants. We’ll also assess the role played by our university in Baltimore’s water history. We supplement our weekly discussions and individual projects with collaborative mapping, blogging, and field trips to sites in and around Baltimore.