School of Liberal Education
Knowledge and Liberal Education
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 2-1-1
Introductory, multidisciplinary, and critical examination of knowledge, the foundation of a liberal education; broad integration of examples from Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts. Discussion groups and labs teach basic skills (critical thinking, numeracy, oral and written communications, and research).
Note:Students who complete both Liberal Education 1000 and either Liberal Education 2000 or Library Science 2000, or all of Liberal Education 1000, 1150 and 2150, may reduce the Liberal Education List Requirement by one course from each of the three lists. Liberal Education 1000 alone does not fulfill any list requirement.
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Global Citizenship I
Credit hours: 1.50
Contact hours per week: 1.5-0-0
The first of two 1.5-credit courses offering a multidisciplinary examination of topics relating to the current cohort theme. Students will relate topics from their other courses to the theme and to Global Citizenship though a variety of activities.
Prerequisite(s):Admission to the Global Citizenship Cohort
Grading:Pass/Fail
Note:Students who complete all of Liberal Education 1000, 1150 and 2150 may reduce the Liberal Education List Requirement by one course from each of the three lists. Liberal Education 1150 alone does not fulfill any list requirement.
The First-Year Experience: Mapping Our Communities
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Introduction to the University as a physical, social, and academic space, and to membership in new academic communities. Includes introduction to the many resources available for student support on campus, the liberal education philosophy of the University of Lethbridge, a study of how a variety of academic disciplines map out their knowledge, and career and study skills.
Lib Ed Req:Social Science
Note:This course is intended for first-year students (having completed fewer than 30.0 credit hours).
Identity and Liberal Education
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Broad exploration of individual and group identities, key concepts in a liberal education; multidisciplinary and integrative perspective; examples from the Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts. Discussion groups and labs teach higher level critical thinking, communication, and research skills.
Prerequisite(s):One of Liberal Education 1000 or four courses (12.0 credit hours) in Arts and Science
Note:Students who complete both Liberal Education 1000 and Liberal Education 2000 may reduce the Liberal Education List Requirement by one course from each of the three lists. Liberal Education 2000 alone does not fulfill any list requirement.
Quantitative Reasoning
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Number systems: historical development and current systems, types of numbers, operations on numbers and their properties, scientific notion, estimation; relationships between numbers: graphs and functions, rates of change, modelling; quantitative data: graphical and numerical description, inference production and evaluation. Applications and examples selected from a range of disciplines. Intended for students with little or no mathematics background.
Lib Ed Req:Science
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Global Citizenship II
Credit hours: 1.50
Contact hours per week: 1.5-0-0
The second of two 1.5-credit courses offering a multidisciplinary examination of topics relating to the current cohort theme. Students will relate topics from their other courses to the theme and to Global Citizenship though a variety of activities.
Prerequisite(s):Liberal Education 1150
Grading:Pass/Fail
Note:Students who complete all of Liberal Education 1000, 1150 and 2150 may reduce the Liberal Education List Requirement by one course from each of the three lists. Liberal Education 2150 alone does not fulfill any list requirement.
Problems and Puzzles
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Problems and puzzles across a wide range of disciplines, including word problems, logic puzzles, mathematical problems, and famous problems and puzzles in history. Strategies and techniques for solving problems, including Pólya's method of problem-solving and metacognitive theories.
Lib Ed Req:Science
Liberal Education 2300/Neuroscience 2300
Core Brain Story
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Lifelong health is determined by many factors including genes, experiences, and social environment. Experiences at sensitive periods of development change the brain in ways that increase or decrease risk for later physical and mental illness, including addiction. This course is based on the Core Story of Brain Development offered by the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (AFWI) and includes significant Indigenous content presented by Indigenous scholars. It is designed for students from any discipline seeking a deeper understanding of early brain development and its consequences for lifelong health, executive function development, and recovery from trauma, and includes Indigenous perspectives on life-long health and recovery from trauma.
Equivalent:Neuroscience 1850/Liberal Education 1850 (The Core Story of Brain Development) (prior to 2022/2023);
Neuroscience 2850/Liberal Education 2850 (The Core Story of Brain Development) (prior to 2022/2023)
Lib Ed Req:Science
Scientific Knowledge Across Disciplines
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
What is science? What are the methods for obtaining good scientific knowledge, and how can different scientific approaches be explained across a wide variety of natural sciences? This course gives a historical overview of the quest to define and develop science.
Prerequisite(s):Second-year standing (a minimum of 30.0 credit hours)
Equivalent:Liberal Education 2850 (Scientific Knowledge Across Disciplines) (prior to 2019/2020)
Lib Ed Req:Science
Liberal Education 3000/Writing 3000
Writing in the Modern Research University
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Exploration of the pivotal role writing plays in the modern research university in the construction of the social roles and identities of academics and of academic knowledge itself; the idea of 'disciplinarity'; the different disciplines in the modern research university; and the different ways these disciplines view research, value types of knowledge, understand the role of the researcher in knowledge-making, and work with the challenges of translating that knowledge for non-expert use. Special attention will also be paid to academic writing as a tool used to exclude or marginalize certain knowledges, and the role of writing in Indigenizing the university and in making the university a more ethical, inclusive research space.
Prerequisite(s):Writing 1000 AND
Liberal Education 1000
Lib Ed Req:Fine Arts and Humanities
Liberal Education (Series)
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Critical examination of significant contemporary themes; multidisciplinary and integrative perspective; broad integration of Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts. Content varies from year to year. Offerings may include, for example, Genocide, Progress, or Friendship and Family.
Prerequisite(s):One of Liberal Education 1000, Liberal Education 2000, or eight courses (24.0 credit hours) in Arts and Science
Note:Students who complete both Liberal Education 3010 and Liberal Education 4000 may reduce the Liberal Education List Requirement by one course from each of the three lists. Liberal Education 3010 alone does not fulfill any list requirement.
Creativity and Innovation
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
An interdisciplinary study of current research into creative thinking and innovation in a Liberal Education context, as well as practice in a variety of specific skills and tools that can enhance creative thought.
Prerequisite(s):Second-year standing (a minimum of 30.0 credit hours)
Equivalent:Liberal Education 3850 (Creativity Across Disciplines) (prior to 2019/2020)
Lib Ed Req:Fine Arts and Humanities
Themes in Innovation
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Themes in Innovation focuses on skills like creativity, critical thinking, and innovation for dealing with complex problems, with creativity, philosophy and history of technology, and social change at the core. Introduction to foundational ideas that contribute to the innovation culture, and the principles of problem-solving, designing and building solutions, and supporting community growth through collaboration. Students are able to move an idea from inception to proposal; successful projects may continue being developed once the course is completed, through Agility funding.
Prerequisite(s):Second-year standing (a minimum of 30.0 credit hours)
Equivalent:Liberal Education 3850 (Themes in Innovation) (prior to 2019/2020);
FA 3850 (Themes in Innovation) (prior to 2018/2019)
Lib Ed Req:Social Science
Natural versus Human Sciences
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
An inquiry into the differences between the natural and human sciences, including historical development of the sciences since the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries and the growth of the human/social sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries. This course will survey the complex and numerous similarities and differences that exist between the natural and human sciences across a wide range of disciplines, including the underlying debate over what human nature is.
Prerequisite(s):Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Equivalent:Liberal Education 3850 (Natural vs Human Sciences) (prior to 2019/2020)
Lib Ed Req:Fine Arts and Humanities
Liberal Education 3600/Archaeology 3600
Human Evolution
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Theories and major developments in the study of human evolution. Examination of hominid fossils and stone tools in order to understand human biological and cultural development. Contributions made by various disciplines to this research area are reviewed.
Prerequisite(s):One of Archaeology 1000, a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Archaeology, or Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req:Science
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859)
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
A presentation and analysis of the ideas of Charles Darwin's classic 1859 book On the Origin of Species, which promotes the theory of evolution by natural selection, including major scientific and philosophical components. The book will be placed in the historical context of the time, and the question of its current relevancy raised. A study of the importance of Darwinism across multiple disciplines.
Prerequisite(s):Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Equivalent:Liberal Education 3850 (Charles Darwin on the Origin of Species) (prior to 2019/2020)
Lib Ed Req:Science
Capstone Ideas in Liberal Education
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Senior seminar; critical examination and discussion of selected readings; synthetic integration across the disciplines in Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts. Content varies from year to year.
Prerequisite(s):Two Liberal Education courses (6.0 credit hours)
OR
Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Note:Students who complete both Liberal Education 3010 and Liberal Education 4000 may reduce the Liberal Education List Requirement by one course from each of the three lists. Liberal Education 4000 alone does not fulfill any list requirement.
Critical Approaches to Knowledge
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
In recent decades, our view of science keeps changing as seen in three main successive yet overlapping intellectual movements of positivism, post-positivism, and postmodernism. This had led to the realizations that knowledge-building is a complex business and that an ever more critical view of science could lead to its very negation. The merits and limitations of each of these three main intellectual movements will be exposed, analyzed, and debated, with examples from a broad range of scientific disciplines.
Prerequisite(s):Second-year standing (a minimum of 30.0 credit hours)
Equivalent:Liberal Education 4850 (Critical Approaches to Knowledge) (prior to 2019/2020)
Lib Ed Req:Science