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

4.8
stars
2,580 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

SI

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I honestly took this course by mistake while searching for Business Sustainability. But it got me so engaged and interested that I finished it in 4 days.

A Great thank you, Mr. Jonathan Tomkin

MS

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The course was comprehensive and presents deep insights to all concepts on sustainability. Thi s course really helped me in understanding the basics of sustainability in a lucid manner.

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651 - 675 of 803 Reviews for Introduction to Sustainability

By Sudhanshu P

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Apr 20, 2021

great

By Chethan r

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Nov 30, 2020

great

By Stacey W

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Jan 13, 2020

Great

By KolliDhanunjay R

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Jul 5, 2024

Good

By Gandham V

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Jul 3, 2024

Good

By 2K19/CE/087 P K

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May 27, 2023

nice

By 2K2O C 1 s

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May 18, 2023

good

By ALCHURI N

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Mar 3, 2023

GOOD

By 2K19/ME/140 M A

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Feb 18, 2023

good

By Mithilesh P

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Sep 5, 2022

good

By M S

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Jan 26, 2022

good

By Hitysh k T

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Jan 23, 2022

best

By 121910307021 S R S

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Dec 15, 2020

GOOD

By Anusha s

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Sep 13, 2020

good

By GLORIYA V

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Aug 6, 2020

Good

By Mona A A

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Aug 2, 2020

good

By ricky

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Jul 19, 2020

NICE

By SIVAGURU M S

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Jun 7, 2020

Good

By abuyasin s

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Jun 7, 2020

Good

By pavan k p

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Oct 28, 2020

ok

By Olesia V

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May 7, 2022

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By Stefanie S

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Jan 22, 2021

A terrific course for someone brand new to the topic of Sustainability. It give me broad strokes understanding and a very good foundation as I move forward in my learning. I have already heard terms and policies mentioned in the news or magazines. I would not have recognized them previously. Now they jumped out at me!

For a recommendation to Coursera, I recommend an updated edition. The course is nearly 10 years old and therefore some of the material is outdated. When it comes to population study it really needs to be accurate to ensure the facts/projections are still accurate. For example one of the quiz questions ask what the current population is rounded off to a round billion. In 2013 it was 7B (correct response) but now it is 8B so on my first take I got it wrong and then had to retake and update my answer to the past.

Thank you Coursera! I am already off and running on two additional courses. I am creating my very own home university curriculum.

By Rohan M

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Jul 14, 2020

I actually wanted to give 4.5 stars but sadly Coursera's review system doesn't allow that. The course content is pretty comprehensive and gives you more than a fair idea about all the concepts related to sustainability. It is by no means a cakewalk to complete this course. I'd like to deliver my thanks to Dr. Jonathan Tomkin who explained all the topics in a succinct way and has obviously put in a lot of hard work into designing the course content and structure. However, I'd like to see the data being updated in this course as most of it dates back to 2010 and also include the COVID-19 pandemic to better explain the concept of sustainability in the modern world. 10/10 recommended.

By Daniel G

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Mar 27, 2017

Really great introduction to the principles of sustainability. A lot of reading was required, more than I expected out of an online course being taken for pleasure, but that being said I enjoyed the content and learning about this topic. Videos combined with the reading made everything very straightforward and easy to understand. My only critique was that some of the test questions were worded in a confusing way and/or didn't provide an explanation as to why one answer was correct vs another, however I understand the challenges of not simply providing the answers to questions given the course format.

By Simon

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May 17, 2020

I found this a very interesting course and it covered a lot more than I expected. On the other hand week 4 about alternative energy is showing its age. Renewables have improved a lot more than the predictions in this course, and have in some cases proven to be viable at this point. I would recommend updating the course, or at least writing clearly that this is dated information. As in these difficult time we need thorough and up to date information to make the right decisions.

If it was updated it would get 5 out of 5 now i would give it 3.5 if i could.