Cape Breton University Expanding its Reach through New Online Learning Courses

Cape Breton University is expanding its Open Online Learning options with the addition of two new courses. Viola Desmond’s Canada and Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World will both be available for credit, certificate and curiosity in January 2019.
Viola Desmond’s Canada will be taught by Dr. Graham Reynolds, the Viola Desmond Chair in Social Justice at CBU. The course focuses on the life and times of Viola Desmond, Canada’s civil rights icon and pioneer Black businesswoman. The course will also provide an overview of the history of Blacks and racial segregation in Canada.
Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World will be taught by Silver Donald Cameron, a distinguished writer, filmmaker and educator whose work includes numerous plays and films, hundreds of essays and articles, and 18 books. The course analyzes the power of human rights to achieve environmental goals.
“If you’re a Canadian (or an American) you don’t have a right to a clean breath of air, or a drink of pure water. Your body contains a pound of plastic and traces of 700 toxic chemicals – and you can’t sue the polluters responsible,” says Cameron.  “But elsewhere, in more than 180 of the UN’s 193-member nations – citizens actually do have a legal right to a healthy environment. I encourage participants to sign up for this class to find out more about their rights.”
In addition to these new courses, Critical Approaches to Outdoor Studies will offered again during the upcoming winter term, and History of the English Language will continue from the fall term with part 2 of the course.
History of the English Language (Part 2) traces some of the main steps in the remarkable journey of the English language. The course sets off with its prehistory in ancient Europe, passes through the conquests of the Middle Ages and its rapid development in the Renaissance, and runs right through to the present day.
Critical Approaches to Outdoor Studies weaves together the various strands and approaches found in outdoor studies around the world. It will offer a critical eye towards how we engage with our natural world and will make connections among the key theoretical and practical threads of fields such as outdoor education, outdoor recreation, leisure studies, adventure therapy and nature-based sustainable tourism.
CBU’s open online learning courses aim to build communities of learning, regardless of where you are in the world. Whether you’re local to Cape Breton Island or residing internationally, participants can choose from learning options including curiosity, which is free of charge; certificate, which includes a fee of $75; or for credit where the participants pay the cost of tuition.
For more information about CBU’s online learning options, please visit: https://www.cbu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Online-Learning-Handbook.pdf