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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Sustainability by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

4.8
stars
2,589 ratings

About the Course

This course introduces the academic approach of Sustainability and explores how today’s human societies can endure in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation and resource limitations. The course focuses on key knowledge areas of sustainability theory and practice, including population, ecosystems, global change, energy, agriculture, water, environmental economics and policy, ethics, and cultural history. This subject is of vital importance, seeking as it does to uncover the principles of the long-term welfare of all the peoples of the planet. As sustainability is a cross-disciplinary field of study, this foundation requires intellectual breadth: as I describe it in the class text, understanding our motivations requires the humanities, measuring the challenges of sustainability requires knowledge of the sciences (both natural and social), and building solutions requires technical insight into systems (such as provided by engineering, planning, and management)....

Top reviews

KF

Dec 18, 2016

It is a well prepared course. Contents are carefully organized and plenty of concepts and examples are included and analyzed. Overall, it is a excellent course to get an overview of sustainability.

MN

Aug 22, 2020

This is a nice course for anyone who wants to have a start on this journey. It is easy to understand, covers a lot of topics that relates to everything and give you a profound insight of the world

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101 - 125 of 805 Reviews for Introduction to Sustainability

By Russell J

Feb 7, 2016

Very well designed and implemented course. Practical and pragmatic. Videos interesting and easy to watch. Smart questions and quizzes that promote learning. The work load is not too demanding, but leaves you feeling like you earned the passing scores. Just right. Highly recommended.

By Shahar g

Apr 28, 2020

opened my eyes to many of the issues effecting our environment, and also educated me on the correct terms, studies and methods in addressing the crisis we are in. this is a great first step on the path to fully grasping the state we are in, and hopefully contributing to a solution

By Sabrina N B

Sep 2, 2020

Excellent introductory course integrating various disciplines and approaches in discussing sustainability. The lectures are informational and organized, and the assessments are the right amount of challenging and adequately test what one has learned from the course. Very worth it!

By Albert K

Jun 29, 2018

Introduction to Sustainability was enjoyably challenging and enlightening, many thanks to Professor Jonathan Thomkins and the production values of his teaching materiials. I thought however, he could have presented a fuller description of possible disaster scenarios.

By Raghava A B

Nov 17, 2020

I thoroughly enjoyed taking this course. I really learnt a lot about growth trends, food production, energy and environmental policy. Thanks a lot to Dr. Jonathan Tomkin for this wonderful course. I would recommend this course to my friends and colleagues as well .

By Rayhana A

Apr 29, 2020

It was really an excellent course. Learned new perspectives to know about sustainability. Relevant examples regarding the topics made the course more enjoyable and easy to understand. I could easily relate the terms in my real life through writing the assignments.

By Margot L

Jun 18, 2020

I really enjoyed this course ! I loved to know more about the "technical aspect" of sustainability. However, the pieces of information remain accessible. There is a lot of reading though, but they might not be mandatory.

Thank you Jonathan for all that knowledge :)

By roshan d

May 2, 2022

Hey There!

It as really a wonderful journey throughout the course! I totally appreciate the efforts by Professor Tomkin to create such a valuable course. The best part was the simplistic yet powerful teaching which made my understanding truely better, Thank you !

By Vinícius A

Oct 3, 2020

Very helpful course. Great teacher and videos. Addresses points that every person should know because it's very comprehensive and makes you think holistic about the world. I am not going to see things as I did before, never. Thank you for creating this material.

By Jessy F

Jun 24, 2017

This is a very good indepth program with rich material and rigorous quizzes. Thankful to Dr.Jonathan Tomkins for the time and effort taken to put this together. It also got me interested overall in the concept much more and gave a optimistic view to our future.

By SANDRA A Z G

Jan 31, 2021

This course is extremely good, full of real data, reports, statistics. Even the questionnaires have been so important, because at the same time, that they challenge knowledge, they help one to properly capture the contents of the lectures. Thank you very much!

By CH 2 S K G

Jun 24, 2020

This course is fantastic. I have learned and experience a lots of facts about environment, population , agriculture etc. For me the most intersting fact in the course is approach of sustainabilty which have been taught by Res. Prof. Jonathan Tomkin.

Thank You!

By Zia U R

Dec 3, 2020

It was really fascinating for me even hailing from an environmental background to look up things in a quite deeper & comprehensive way. While the course gives a tough time to also have the insight to memorize things to pass which is sort of bad to eliminate.

By harpreet k

May 5, 2020

I loved the course. This gave me a new perspective on life and energy. the knowledge I gained from the course will help me throughout my life plus I will try my best to further provide the same to most of the society to bring the earth to a sustainable path.

By Mohamed A

Sep 6, 2017

One of my favorite courses so for, It was presented with details and good quizzes, I can say that I finished this course with more valuable knowledge and the most important: more curiosity to learn more about every aspect and field related to sustainability

By Ovie F

Jul 27, 2020

The best online course I have ever taken in my life!! The course was so interesting while everything was taught in a way that was relatable. The assignments and peer reviews exposed you to different school of thoughts. This is one course I highly recommend

By Fazla Z A

Jul 7, 2020

This has been the best, most educative and helpful course,Thanks to Dr Jonathan Tomkin, we've learned a very clear concept about the earth, its environment and its systems, and most importantly, sustainability and sustainable measures for a better future.

By Sze K F

Nov 1, 2015

This is a good course and I can get a brief idea what the position is the earth is. Also, I can remember some key figures about the environment situation. The difficulties of the quizs are designed suitability for student memorizing key point and concepts

By ABHAY K J

May 5, 2021

The course content was very good and cover in proper way. The quizzes are little bit tough but the proper watching of video will help in quizzes at great extent. This course almost covered all aspects of sustainability. A very good course for beginners .

By Chiara D R

May 31, 2020

A good starting point for whoever is interested in the various facets of sustainability. It requires a certain flexibility, since it deals with many topics, but it's rewarding. The course is very well made and it feels like a real university course.

By Laura M N

May 17, 2016

Me gusta mucho el curso, tienen un gran concepto, enseñan el contexto y ofrecen muy buenas referencias bibliográficas, me gustan mucho los exámenes porque más allá de preguntar conceptos, se evalúan análisis con base en lo explicado en las lecturas.

By Rebecca W

Nov 12, 2015

I think it is a diverse course that looks at many different aspects of sustainability. Gives a rounded explanation on sustainability, goes through its problems in detail and possible solutions for the future. Really does make you think! Great work!

By Amjad H

May 9, 2020

This course has helped me know about what we, as individuals and as Human Civilization, have done to mother earth. At the same the ways and techniques we can adopt in our lives to make this planet a sustainable place for our future generations.

By Trista B

Sep 5, 2016

As someone who, upon starting, did not know anything about this topic, I thoroughly enjoyed this course. Although someone said he was not 'engaging' enough ... I found the instructor to be very engaging and he was easy to follow and understand.

By M M K

Jun 22, 2020

Such a excellent course, i have learned a lot about current trends and global issues especially. thanks for the opportunity to choose this course to ILLINOIS university and Coursera. It is really a great bath while walking along this curse.