Emily Melvin

Teaching Philosophy

My goal as an instructor is help students think critically, creatively, and analytically in approaching social-environmental relationships and problems. I encourage students to carefully evaluate and consider how knowledge is produced through the questions we, as scientists, choose to ask, the places we ask them, the methods we use to investigate them, and the way we disseminate our results. I teach students to maintain and open mind and challenge pre-conceived notions of the world by engaging with a diverse range of knowledge systems and through thoughtful and constructive dialogue with their classmates and colleagues. By exposing my students to different perspectives, I seek to train them to be compassionate, insightful, and thoughtful scientists, decisionmakers, and citizens, regardless of their disciplinary background and career interests.

I am committed to:

• Fostering an inclusive and welcoming classroom environment where students are encouraged to draw on their unique identities and personal experiences
• Incorporating materials into my classes that draw on a wide range of histories, perspectives, and knowledge systems
• Employing a range of instructional and evaluative techniques to help neurodiverse students with a wide range of learning styles succeed
• Continually soliciting student feedback and adapting my teaching to address student needs and interests

What Students Can Expect in My Classroom

Depending on the course subject matter, I rely on a combination of lecture, discussion, and experiential learning in my classroom. While some foundational topics (e.g. statutory or legal frameworks) are best communicated by lecture, many of the topics we engage with my courses are nuanced and personal, and each student brings a unique worldview and experience that will cause them to engage with the material differently. I therefore support lectures with course discussion whenever feasible. I facilitate dialogue among students by providing guiding questions for students to consider when engaging with source material, but I also encourage them to approach material creatively and ask additional questions drawn from their own expertise. I teach students to analyze texts and other materials carefully and critically, and to present informed, evidence-based arguments, both orally and in writing.

I also believe that experiential learning is a powerful tool to help students connect the theory developed in course discussions with real-world context and the lived experiences of themselves and others. Experiential learning opportunities may include in-class activities or games, observational exercises, or field trips and experiences. Students also benefit from learning from diverse voices, so I also welcome the opportunity for students to learn from guest lectures or through discussions with knowledge holders, either in the classroom or in the field.

Courses and Materials

I am happy to share course materials with other instructors and welcome use of these materials for academic purposes under this Creative Commons license.

Ocean Governance and Policy

Audience: Undergraduate students with little to no social science/policy background

Overview: This course provides an overview of ocean and coastal policy, governance, and management. The primary objective of this course is for students to understand the various formal and informal governance mechanisms relevant to oceans across scale, spanning from local management to national and international oceans policy.  This includes an introduction to major international agreements and United States statutes that relate to ocean governance, as well as informal governance institutions and mechanisms. Students are introduced to the social and environmental challenges that face policymakers, managers, and stakeholders, and learn how the natural and social sciences inform oceans policy (including the challenges with science/policy communications).

Course materials:
Fall 2022 Ocean Policy and Management Syllabus
Tragedy of the Commons / Common Pool Resource Management Fishing Lesson
Stakeholder Selection Exercise

Ocean Justice

Audience: Advanced undergraduate students interested in social science or environmental justice

Overview: In recent decades, interest in oceans governance has increased globally, with concerns about anthropogenic environmental impacts (including climate change) intersecting with expanding ocean-related economic development proposals. Yet the benefits of ocean exploitation and the burdens of environmental degradation are neither equitably nor equally distributed, either globally or locally.  Moreover, much global discussion regarding these inequities uses western conceptions of ocean “resources” that may not reflect knowledge systems, histories, lived experiences, and values worldwide.

This course will focus on issues of environmental justice that pertain to the oceans across multiple scales. Students will be introduced to diverse perspectives about how people around the world think about the oceans not only as potential source of resources, but as important social and historical spaces, and they will critically evaluate what those perspectives mean for conceptualizing environmental justice in and around oceans. They will then evaluate the ocean-related justice concerns posed by a variety of timely issues, such as global biodiversity negotiations, sea level rise/disasters, the blue economy, fisheries/aquaculture, and marine protected areas. Finally, students will research and evaluate an initiative working to address justice concerns in the ocean environment, using concepts learned throughout the class.

Course Materials:
Fall 2025 Ocean Justice Syllabus
Slides on AI Policy

Potential Future Courses

Both of the above courses could be adapted to suit graduate-level students or more advanced undergraduate students with foundational prerequisites. I am also interested in teaching/developing other graduate- or undergraduate-level courses relating to the following topics:

• Human Geography/Space and Place
• Political Ecology
• Conservation and Development
• Commons, Commoning, and Community-Based Management
• Environmental Justice
• Post-Development and Alternative Futures
• Critical Ocean Geographies
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Ethics of Social Science Research