SBIO 2154 Packaging & Culture (a Pathways Concept #3 course)

SBIO 2154: Packaging and Culture

Packaging and Culture takes you on a journey through time to explore how something as everyday as packaging has shaped human history. From the first containers that helped people store food after the rise of agriculture, to the role packaging has played in building trade networks, establishing laws, and even fueling international conflicts, you’ll uncover just how deeply packaging is connected to culture and society.

In this class, you’ll investigate how raw materials, design choices, and cultural values intersect to influence economies, worldviews, and even human health. You’ll also apply frameworks like cultural diffusion, functionalism, and systems thinking to better understand the bigger picture. Think of it as detective work — uncovering how packaging reflects the story of human civilization, and using those lessons to think critically about today’s challenges and the future of packaging.

Beyond the fascinating history, this course also gives you skills that employers value. Learning to connect cultural, economic, and environmental perspectives makes you a more flexible thinker and problem solver — qualities that stand out in the job market. You’ll come away with insights and analytical tools that make you a stronger, more marketable employee ready to tackle real-world issues.

Once you successfully completed this course, you will be able to:

1. Identify fundamental concepts of the social sciences within the context packaging as material culture.
2. Analyze interconnections between raw material access, packaging design, economic systems, global trade, and world views. 
3. Analyze the effect of packaging systems on human behavior, social institutions, and regulation using theories and methods of the social sciences. 
4. Apply historical lessons learned to contemporary issues and emerging packaging trends to forecast possible societal outcomes. 

Learn more about this course from Dr. Matt Baker!
 

Overall Pathways Mission

As a central component of the undergraduate experience at Virginia Tech, the Pathways curriculum will guide students to examine the world from multiple perspectives and integrate their knowledge across disciplines and domains of learning through a hands-on, minds-on approach.

The Pathways curriculum includes seven core learning concepts and two integrative learning concepts. The concepts reflect broad knowledge areas for study and are supported by student learning outcomes. These outcomes describe the observable behaviors that students will demonstrate as they pursue breadth and/or depth related to particular outcomes. 

SBIO 2154 is a Pathways Concept #3 Course

Concept 3: Reasoning in the Social Sciences - The learning outcomes of this concept are the utilization of quantitative and qualitative methods to explain the behavior and actions of individuals, groups, and institutions within larger social, economic, political, and geographic contexts. Courses that meet concept #3 will teach you the following:

1. Identify fundamental concepts of the social sciences.
2. Analyze human behavior, social institutions and/or patterns of culture using theories and methods of the social sciences.
3. Identify interconnections among and dierences between social institutions, groups, and individuals.
4. Analyze the ways in which values and beliefs relate to human behavior and social relationships