This is a thread about teaching freshman....

For spring semester, I've been tasked with developing a new course (that I'll also be the lead instructor on), LA 1001 Sustainability by Design. The draft syllabus is due in one week. The class will be part of the University wide Sustainability Minor & the Landscape B.E.D. curriculum with an expected enrollment of 100-120 folks. The course will focus on linking sustainability to the built environment, and try to develop visual literacy/awareness of design issues. We have a week to come up with the learning objectives for the Curriculum Committee, so I'm scrambling. It's been 20 years since I was a freshman, so I'm out of touch with how freshmen think and how much work they can realistically accomplish and stuff like that. I have several questions about developing a class for freshman that I want to crowd source to the archinect.

The class will be in a lecture format with a discussion/lab/recitation section. Any suggestions for how many times/week we should meet? I'm thinking two @ one-hour long lectures, plus an hour recitation (need to meet min of 3-hours/week) or would one longer lecture (2-hours) plus the recitation provide for better comprehension and retention of the topics?

Does anybody have any 'intro to architecture/landscape/urbanism/ planning' or 'intro to sustainability' syllabi aimed at freshmen that they can share? I'm looking to grasp a reasonable work load/amount of readings to assign.

As to texts, I'm leaning towards cradle-to-cradle, and Hayden's field guide to sprawl. Perhaps I may go literary with Invisible Cities. Don't think I want to use Ching (too architectural), but are there other books that discuss the parts of the design process/built environment? So what other books do you suggest that are accessible to non-designers that explore built environment or sustainability?

Many thanks!