A survey of how America has become the world’s largest consumer of …
A survey of how America has become the world’s largest consumer of energy. Explores American history from the perspective of energy and its relationship to politics, diplomacy, the economy, science and technology, labor, culture, and the environment. Topics include muscle and water power in early America, coal and the Industrial Revolution, electrification, energy consumption in the home, oil and U.S. foreign policy, automobiles and suburbanization, nuclear power, OPEC and the 70’s energy crisis, global warming, and possible paths for the future.
Experiential learning, yes! But...online? at a distance? independent undergraduate research? This capstone …
Experiential learning, yes! But...online? at a distance? independent undergraduate research? This capstone course in Energy and Sustainability Policy is a novel approach to exactly this. Each student follows the same overarching structure: a four-part written research report, weekly journals, group discussions, a LinkedIn presence, an in-person presentation and a video submission. Along the way, the student has numerous personal interactions with real world stakeholders and gives an in-person presentation to an interested local audience. Proven over many semesters now, this engaged scholarship model serves senior students well, guiding and building confidence and professional opportunities.
In this activity, students compare countries and nation states with high- and …
In this activity, students compare countries and nation states with high- and low-energy consumption rates within a specific region of the world. Students are encouraged to draw linkages between a country's energy culture and its position in multilateral climate negotiations.
This activity introduces students to different forms of energy, energy transformations, energy …
This activity introduces students to different forms of energy, energy transformations, energy storage, and the flow of energy through systems. Students learn that most energy can be traced back to nuclear fusion on the sun.
This simple data visualization allows students to compare primary energy use and …
This simple data visualization allows students to compare primary energy use and several other variables (carbon dioxide emissions, oil consumption) among different countries, including by OECD and non-OECD status. Students have the ability to toggle a handful of different ways to visualize the data, such as on a map, a bar chart, or a line graph.
Campus Climate Conversations are designed to be both educational and "deliberative," meaning …
Campus Climate Conversations are designed to be both educational and "deliberative," meaning students, staff, and faculty interact with one another in small groups to share views and ideas about climate action strategies. This activity is structured to enhance education and engagement, and to generate collaborative climate action strategies.
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Faculty and students of politics inevitably engage with contentious debates about global …
Faculty and students of politics inevitably engage with contentious debates about global inequality and development, conflict, and environmental sustainability. Teaching and learning outcomes in politics tend to emphasize critical and analytical thinking, but have paid less attention to emotion and feeling in considering how to navigate current issues. How can contemplative practices help instructors and students not only intellectually consider, but also emotionally hold difficult and often divisive and unsettling issues? In what ways can such practices both create space for honest, compassionate discussion and encourage engaged citizenship? By using a guided exercise of self-reflection and dialogue, students will develop self-awareness of their emotional responses and of their peers to contentious political issues, and recognize the importance of open listening and dialogue for gaining a deeper appreciation of contrasting views.
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In this video, students explore the work of Jay Keasling, a biologist …
In this video, students explore the work of Jay Keasling, a biologist who is experimenting with ways to produce a cleaner-burning fuel from biological matter using genetically modified microorganisms.
The course presents an in-depth interdisciplinary perspective of electric power systems, with …
The course presents an in-depth interdisciplinary perspective of electric power systems, with regulation providing the link among the engineering, economic, legal and environmental viewpoints. Generation dispatch, demand response, optimal network flows, risk allocation, reliability of service, renewable energy sources, ancillary services, tariff design, distributed generation, rural electrification, environmental impacts and strategic sustainability issues will be among the topics addressed under both traditional and competitive regulatory frameworks.
My first experience teaching climate change came after a unit covering the …
My first experience teaching climate change came after a unit covering the mechanisms and impacts of climate change. After this unit, I realized students may have a pessimistic outlook on the future. However, in the past humans have successfully reversed some major environmental problems. One example is banning the use of DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) as an insecticide which caused birds egg shells to be too thin. Another example is a global agreement to stop the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) which caused a hole in the ozone layer. Also the banning of lead in gasoline was another environmental success. The unit presented here is a engineering solutions oriented unit focused on climate mitigation. The mitigation strategies considered are carbon sequestration and alternative energies. This unit will cover the engineering design process with activities to practice this process while learning about carbon sequestration or wind energy. Information provided here includes background on climate change, information on the engineering design process, and different alternative energies or carbon sequestration.
Through an analysis of water quality in a nearby lake, students are …
Through an analysis of water quality in a nearby lake, students are introduced to basic chemical techniques such as titrations (both acid/base and oxidation/reduction), atomic absorption spectrometry, and uv/vis spectrometry
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The classic campus-based project is an environmental or sustainability assessment, often referred …
The classic campus-based project is an environmental or sustainability assessment, often referred to as an environmental audit. This course, taught at Carleton in 2001, describes how this type of project can be undertaken. In this scenario, a student, campus environmental group or class researches aspects the envinormental impact of the school.
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Suzanne Savanick, Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College. Based on a Greening the Campus environmental studies colloquium course taught at Carleton College in 1991.
Short Description: This college-level open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues …
Short Description: This college-level open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from a biological perspective.
Long Description: This open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from a biological perspective. The text is designed for an introductory-level college science course or as a course for non-science majors. Topics include the fundamentals of ecology, biodiversity, pollution, climate change, food production, and human population growth and the biological concepts that allow a student to understand the large challenges facing our society.
Word Count: 116345
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This college-level open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from a …
This college-level open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from a biological perspective. Environmental Biology is a free open textbook that enables students to develop a nuanced understanding of today’s most pressing environmental issues. This text helps students grasp the scientific foundation of environmental topics so they can better understand the world around them and their impact upon it. This book is a collaboration between various authors and organizations that are committed to providing students with high quality and affordable textbooks.
This four week curriculum is for elementary learners to explore environmental engineering …
This four week curriculum is for elementary learners to explore environmental engineering in urban environments. The unit starts with a broad question of “how can we make our community more sustainable?”, the unit will cover what the field of environmental engineering is, what predictability, mitigation and sustainability are, and how they relate to each other. These principles will be taught as vocabulary and will be supported with the use of anchor charts; students will be expected to use them during discussions. The unit will teach about urban infrastructure and the phenomenon of the Urban Heat Island effect. Students will then learn about and explore the possibilities of alternative energy sources and cities that already implementing green engineering. Students will explore how they can answer the question that was presented to them at the beginning of the unit. Following the engineering design process students will plan changes that they would make to their own city (in our case New Haven, Connecticut). Students will act as environmental engineers to come up with potential solutions to answer the broad question posed at the beginning of the unit.
This course focuses on two sets of issues in environmental ethics. The …
This course focuses on two sets of issues in environmental ethics. The first set of issues, emerging significantly from practices such as animal agriculture and animal captivity in zoos, research facilities, and other settings, concerns the moral status of non-human animals. What kind of moral consideration are non-human animals owed? Do they have rights, and if so, how extensive are those rights? As a philosophy class, our emphasis is on the analysis of concepts and the critical evaluation of arguments. Beyond gaining a familiarity with the issue of the moral status of animals (along with the second issue of the class, not discussed here, concerning global climate change), students should expect to develop their analytic and evaluative skills through in-class discussion and a range of writing assignments.
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This is a inquiry-driven class research project on a local environmental geochemistry …
This is a inquiry-driven class research project on a local environmental geochemistry question that is accomplished during three-hour laboratory sessions each week. Students are divided into groups that will share the responsibilities of collecting samples and data. Once the data is collected, it is shared among the entire class so that all students have the same data set. The class works on data presentation, preliminary analysis, and statistics together Then each student writes his/her own report separately.
Outcomes:
Laboratory skills -- Students have basic laboratory skills necessary to carry out a supervised geochemical study (e.g. can perform Gram titration of waters in field, can collect water samples using clean methods).
Quantitative methods -- Students can manipulate, sort, and transfer data in Excel and can create simple x-y plots and histograms to bring out trends in data.
Critical thinking -- Students can develop multiple hypotheses to explain trends in data and can design tests of these hypotheses.
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This is an independent case study project completed in pairs. The students …
This is an independent case study project completed in pairs. The students should investigate an example of natural geochemistry and then use a poster format to share their findings with the class.
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Lab instructions for Environmental Geology students Word Count: 19773 (Note: This resource's …
Lab instructions for Environmental Geology students
Word Count: 19773
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