Environmental Education: Transport

Course description

Transportation, in all its forms, has become easier to access but at what cost? In this course, you will learn about the current state of global transportation. You will study your daily commute, see how it affects your health and how your vehicle can harm the environment. With the knowledge you take away from this course, you will be able to take your first effective steps towards more sustainable methods of transportation.

When heading out for work or running a few errands, what form of transportation do you use: car, bus, bike or something else? Have you ever considered how your choice could be harming the planet? In this course, you will learn how transportation has evolved into the harmful issue that it has become. You begin with a look into the current state of transport and see how goods are delivered across the globe. In particular, you will learn about food delivery and the negative ramifications of delivering various food across the world, such as having New Zealand lamb on European shelves, for instance. You will then cover the one fuel that is used to power most of this moving around - oil - and find out how we have become so dependent on this energy source. You will also look into extracting energy from fossil fuels as you learn about the power required for transport.

Then take a deep dive into the factors that have helped to create the world of transportation that we live in today such as the evolution of the suburb and the growth of personal mobility within these communities. As you progress, you will cover common cliches on car ownership as a status symbol and how this has led to over one billion car owners around the globe. Along with growing suburbs, you will also cover public transportation. If you lived in these suburban areas would you depend on public or private transport? For those in more urban areas, as you will learn, public transport is becoming scarcer and harder to afford. This section then wraps up with under-considered urban planning and decentralisation. This includes the rising dependency on private cars, low-cost quick fixes and the growing needs required to sustain the tourism industry.

As you continue your studies, you will learn about the sustainability of transport and what we can do to change our ways. This includes potent greenhouse gasses released as part of fossil fuel combustion in cars and busses and the specific harm they do to the human body and Earth, in particular black carbon and its effects on the Arctic's snow. The course finishes with the impact of car culture on human life, particularly how your workday is shaped by your daily commute. You will also learn about the solutions that could help counter the harm that is being caused daily. Throughout this course, you will form a solid understanding of the damage that modern transportation is doing to the planet and your own quality of life. Start this course today to learn how you can change your transportation method to help protect the climate and planet where you live.