Course Annotation “The Future of Humanity and the Biosphere: Depletion or Flourishing?”

THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY AND THE BIOSPHERE: DEPLETION OR FLOURISHING?

Name of the discipline

The future of humanity and the biosphere: exhaustion or flourishing?

Instructor

Kravchenko Maryna Oleksandrivna, Ph.D. (Biology), senior lecturer of the Department of Zoology and Animal Ecology, marinakravchenko2106@gmail.com;
Shabanov Dmytro Andriiovych, D.Sc. (Biology), prof., professor of the Department of Zoology and Animal Ecology, shabanov@karazin.ua;
http://batrachos.com/E_or_P

The year and semester in which the discipline is planned to be studied

2nd and 3rd years; spring semester (IV and VI); the course is available to students of the 2nd and 3rd levels of higher education (master's and postgraduate students)

The faculties (educational-scientific institutes) whose students are offered to study the discipline

All faculties and educational‑research institutes

List of competencies and corresponding learning outcomes ensured by the discipline

An understanding of the modern natural-science picture of the world.

The ability to analyse the cause-and-effect chains that determine the future of humanity.

Obtaining a basis for finding the optimal course of action for an individual, human groups and humanity as a whole at the current stage of our development

Description of the discipline

Prerequisites required for studying the discipline

There are no special conditions

The maximum number of students who can study at the same time

25

Topics of classroom sessions and independent work

Universal history as a concept that considers the development of the Universe from its origin to the present as a single coherent process. The origin of the Universe, matter, stars. Stars as factories of elements, the life cycle of stars. The origin of the Solar System, Earth, and the Moon. Various approaches to understanding the phenomenon of time. Models of the distant future of the Universe.

1. Formation of oceans and sedimentary rocks. The sedimentary cycle. The origin of life. Autocatalytic reactions. Chemical selection. The RNA world. LUCA and the further differentiation of the main groups of living organisms.

2. Main stages of life's development on Earth. Patterns of this development.

3. Main stages of anthropogenesis. The spread of humanity across the planet, hybridization between different human species. Megafauna extinction caused by the spread of humanity. Main stages in the development of relationships between human populations and their habitats.

4. Section 2. The contemporary global humanity

5. Unique ecological characteristics of Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758: energy sources of contemporary humanity.

Unique ecological characteristics of Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758: mode of evolution. Comparison of cultural and genetic inheritance.

6. Unique ecological features Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758: the energy sources of modern humanity.

7. Unique ecological features Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758: the mode of evolution. A comparison of cultural and genetic inheritance.

8. Unique ecological features Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758: demographic explosion and globality.

9. Concepts of rational use of natural resources, nature-centrism, sustainable (non-exhaustive) development.

10. Section 3. Our variable future

Possible future: scenarios of prosperity. Trends in the development of science and technology. Technological singularity.

11. Search for the optimal course of action for an individual, human groups, and humanity as a whole at the current stage of our development.

12. Summarizing. Ways to implement new knowledge into life.

13. It should be noted that the authors consider the presented syllabus to be preliminary, one that may be adjusted during the course (it will be taught for the first time; we still need to understand how this should be done optimally).

14. Students in this course are very different. Some of them are biologists who have taken a course in ecology. Some of them have even listened to an inter-faculty course that D.Sh. taught last semester. We apologize to them: we will be discussing some things again here, since not everyone understands these matters that are important for determining humanity's future. Well; we hope that you will be able to spend part of your freed-up working time on working with literature and preparing reports.

Language of instruction.

Ukrainian