Focusing primarily on the period since 1500, explores the influence of climate, topography, plants, animals, and microorganisms on human history and the reciprocal influence of people on the environment. Topics include the European encounter with the Americas, the impact of modern technology, and the historical roots of the current environmental crisis.

Focusing primarily on the period since 1500, explores the influence of climate, topography, plants, animals, and microorganisms on human history and the reciprocal influence of people on the environment. Topics include the European encounter with the Americas, the impact of modern technology, and the historical roots of the current environmental crisis.

This course focuses on national environmental and energy policy-making; environmental ethics; the techniques of environmental analysis; and strategies for collaborative environmental decision-making. The primary objective of the course is to help students formulate a personal theory of environmental planning practice. The course is taught comparatively, with constant references to examples from around the world. It is required of all Graduate / Professional students pursuing an environmental policy and planning specialization in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. This course is the first subject in the Environmental Policy and Planning sequence. It reviews philosophical debates including growth vs. deep ecology, "command-and-controlâ€ vs. market-oriented approaches to regulation, and the importance of expertise vs. indigenous knowledge. Emphasis is placed on environmental planning techniques and strategies. Related topics "include the management of sustainability, the politics of ecosystem management, environmental governance and the changing role of civil society, ecological economics, integrated "assessment (combining environmental impact assessment (EIA) and risk assessment), joint fact finding in science-intensive policy disputes, environmental justice in poor communities of "color, and environmental dispute resolution. "Environmental Problem-Solving "(Susskind et al., 2017, Anthem Press), a video-enhanced eBook, provides students with full access to all the "assigned readings, faculty commentary on the readings, and examples of the best student performance on course assignments in previous years.

This course uses the basic principles of biology and earth science as a context for understanding environmental policies and resource management practices. Our planet is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, from oil spills to global climate change. In ENSC 1000, you will learn about the science behind these problems; preparing you to make an informed, invaluable contribution to Earth’s future. I hope that each of you is engaged by the material presented and participates fully in the search for, acquisition of, and sharing of information within our class.

Introduction to Environmental Science and Sustainability Canvas Commons Course

SUS 102

General Description:

This course serves to introduce students to the science behind critical environmental debates and the biological basis of creating and maintaining sustainable ecosystems. This course focuses on critical thinking skills to assess such questions as: how do we decide what to believe about environmental issues? How do we predict trends in population growth, or climate change? How do we calculate and understand uncertainty in these predictions? Should people eat lower on the food chain? How are human activities linked to the phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, and pollution and eutrophication? How can fisheries be made to be more sustainable? How can we quantify and value biodiversity? Can we restore “natural” ecosystems and should wolves be re-established in the west? What is valid science in the global warming debate?

Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course students should have the ability to:
• Recognize and apply concepts and theories of population biology to interdisciplinary fields such as conservation ecology;
• Apply principles of evolutionary dynamics and ecosystem biogeochemistry to understand and predict effects of pollutants such as heavy metals, pesticides, or acid rain on ecosystems;
• Effectively debate and evaluate scientific arguments behind such diverse fields as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or organic vs. conventional farming;
• Interpret data critically, and understand uncertainty in scientific data and model prediction in such diverse fields as nitrogen saturation and global climate change;
• Calculate carbon footprint, water footprint of human activities
• Develop an awareness of the responsibilities of professional scientists.

This course offers a broad overview of physical, chemical, biological, geological, principles of environmental sciences, and serves as a core course for EEOS majors. Examples will focus on linked watershed and coastal marine systems. The student will be introduced to natural processes and interactions in the atmosphere, in the ocean, and on land. There is a focus on biogeochemical cycling of elements as well as changes of these natural cycles with time, especially with recent anthropogenic effects. Topics include plate tectonics, global climate change, ozone depletion, water pollution, oceanography, ecosystem health, and natural resources.

Short Description:
Introduction to Environmental Sciences and Sustainability is a college-level Open Educational Resource (OER) that focuses on the most relevant environmental science issues and addresses ways to incorporate sustainable practices. This resource is targeted at environmental science students.

Long Description:
Introduction to Environmental Sciences and Sustainability is a college-level Open Educational Resource (OER) that focuses on the most relevant environmental science issues and addresses ways to incorporate sustainable practices. The text is designed for an introductory-level college science course. Topics include the fundamentals of ecology, biodiversity, pollution, climate change, food production, human population growth, and incorporating sustainable approaches in our communities, economies, and environments. This resource is targeted at environmental science students.

Students can print a PDF copy of this text as a hard copy (at the student’s expense). Electronic copies of a PDF or the ebook are available through UWF’s Library Pressbook.

Contributors: Chasidy Hobbs, M.S. and Kwame Owusu-Daaku, Ph.D

Word Count: 118178

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Geology is the core discipline of the earth sciences and encompasses many different phenomena, including plate tectonics and mountain building, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the long-term evolution of Earth’s atmosphere, surface and life. Because of the ever-increasing demand for resources, the growing exposure to natural hazards, and the changing climate, geology is of considerable societal relevance. This course introduces students to the basics of geology. Through a combination of lectures, labs, and field observations, we will address topics ranging from mineral and rock identification to the origin of the continents, from geologic mapping to plate tectonics, and from erosion by rivers and glaciers to the history of life.

A classroom discussion about global climate change designed for a general undergraduate classroom. Discussion is facilitated by a 10-15 minute brainstorming session or gallery walk.

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Our planet is currently being challenged by dramatic changes to earth and human systems under the influence of climate change and variability. These include changes of population and environmental dynamics that impacts human health. Thus, climate change is considered the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. Health impacts can be direct typically related to extreme weather events; indirect with linkages to climate change induced environmental alterations and damage or in relation to displacement, conflict and social disruption. This presentation provides a series of examples of changes of environmental and social determinants of health with negative or positive health impacts. These include impacts on communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and mental health of importance in particular in vulnerable urban and rural settings as well as among sensitive community groups exposed to variations in temperature and precipitation patterns.

Infectious diseases have a specific, ethiological cause, e.g. a microbe such as tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, most people exposed to TB does not develop the disease. What determines this may be poverty, weakening of the person by other diseases or smoking and alcohol. So-called life-style diseases are (also) determined by the way you live, and include prevalent non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases, but besides of risk factors such as smoking and drinking or over-eating, the living conditions matter equally and sometimes more. The environment, climate changes, urbanization, socio-economic factors all impact health and disease. When an individual grows older, patterns of his/her diseases changes: the same applies when a society grows ‘older’.

This session will expand the student´s knowledge about human health and quality of life in the context of global and local ecology. Examples will be provided on how environmental management and development influence human health. The session provide an overview of the disease burden attributable to the environment, and much of this burden is placed across different geographical regions of the world. Examples will be presented on the impacts of poor quality water, insufficient access to water, lack of appropriate sanitation and poor personal hygiene. Other examples of environmental health factors included relate to reduced forest cover, unsustainable agricultural production systems, climate change, and poor management of natural resources that significantly influence livelihood, food security and migration patterns.

This presentation provides an overview of the major determinants and specific drivers of epidemiological transition and changes in disease burdens, including demographic factors, urbanisation, diet, economics, climate changes, disasters, health sector reforms, health care and health care technology.

Global Health Governance is how we create an organized response to health at the global level. Each country has its own health system, but health issues are become international, as people travel, and goods and services (for example tobacco sales) are becoming increasingly globalised, and challenges such as climate change have a wide reach. WHO has an important guiding role in the global health architecture, but it has limited funding and mandate to establish and implement legally binding acts.

What determines our health? Why does life expectancy differ so much from country to country, or even from one group to another in the same country? Well, there is no easy answer to these questions. There are many factors that play a part in determining the well-being of the population, or even of an individual. In global health, we call these factors determinants of health. Determinants of health interact with each other, and influence our health status is in numerous ways, in turn influencing our well-being, morbidity, mortality, and life expectancy. As you already know, the first and most important health determinant is income. Income of an individual or a household, but also income of the country a person lives in. Other important health determinants are education, access to water, diet, environment and many more. In this presentation we will look closer at how health determinants determine an individual’s health, and how different health determinants interact with each other.

Get transcript for video here: https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/module/58789/overview

Human geography emphasizes the importance of geography as a field of inquiry and introduces students to the concept of spatial organization. Knowing the location of places, people, and events is a gateway to understanding complex environmental relationships and interconnections among places and across landscapes.

Geographic concepts emphasize location, space, place, scale of analysis, pattern, regionalization, and globalization. These concepts are essential to understanding spatial interaction and spatial behavior, the dynamics of human population growth and migration, patterns of culture, political control of territory, areas of agricultural production, the changing location of industry and economic development strategies, and evolving human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization. Geographers use geospatial technology (e.g., satellite imagery, aerial photography, geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), and drone technology), spatial data, mathematical formulas, and design models to understand the world from a spatial perspective better.

Human geography enables us to consider the regional organization of various phenomena and encourages geographic analysis to understand processes in a changing world. For example, geographic perspectives on the impact of human activities on the environment, from local to global scales, include effects on land, water, atmosphere, population, biodiversity, and climate. These human ecological examples are inherent throughout the discipline, especially in topics dealing with population growth, agricultural and industrial practices, and rapid urbanization. Geographers apply geographic methods and geospatial technologies to a variety of situations.

This lecture presents an introduction to an end-to-end scientific computing workflow utilising Docker containers.In the first part, attendees learn about the fundamentals of containerisation and the advantages it brings to scientific software. Participants then familiarise with Docker technologies and tools, discovering how to manage and run containers on personal computers, and how to build applications of increasing complexity into portable container images. Particular emphasis is given to software resources which enable highly-efficient scientific applications, like MPI libraries and the CUDA Toolkit.The second part proposes hands-on exercises that revisit and expand upon the examples provided in the first part.The last part of the lecture focuses on deploying Docker images on high-end computing systems, using a container engine capable of leveraging the performance and scalability of such machines, while maintaining a consistent user experience with Docker.This lecture is based on material produced in the context of the ESiWACE European Center of Excellence (CoE) and presented during the "ESiWACE Summer School on Effective HPC for Climate and Weather" in 2020 and 2021.Contact: alberto.madonna@cscs.ch

Introduction to Oceanography is a textbook appropriate to an introductory-level university course in oceanography. The book covers the fundamental geological, chemical, physical and biological processes in the ocean, with an emphasis on the North Atlantic region.

Short Description:
Welcome to this free eBook, “Intro to Permaculture”. The permaculture perspective has more resonance now than at any other time since the term ‘permaculture’ was coined in 1978. The Paris Climate Agreement of 2016 has the world admitting it needs to turn civilization onto a different road. Permaculture design has been scouting out that path for nearly 40 years, and now it’s time that the world sees some of what we have learned about living in cooperation with nature.This free introduction to permaculture is meant for the novice and the professional alike, with no prior experience necessary. For the person new to permaculture design and land stewardship, this book will provide a foundation from which to build upon with subsequent training, and introduce a new perspective that can be applied in many careers and facets of life. Data dashboard

Long Description:
Permaculture Design is a method of land planning that can be applied at scales from the home garden to city block to village to farm. It is an ethically based whole-systems design approach that uses concepts, principles, and methods derived from ecosystems, indigenous technologies, and other time-tested practices to create sustainable human settlements and institutions. Although rooted in horticulture and agriculture, Permaculture design is interdisciplinary, touching on a wide range of subjects including regional planning, ecology, animal husbandry, appropriate technology, architecture, social justice, and international development.

This open text book is derived from the content of the Massive Open Online Course “Intro to Permaculture”. The original course also included interactive mapping and design tools that accompanied this content. The course and book provide a general overview of the Permaculture design system. The book can be downloaded as a print version. However, there are many accompanying videos and content pages that are linked to throughout the text, so it is best viewed online where the links can be accessed.

Word Count: 15583

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This activity introduces students to the process of converting sunlight into electricity through the use of photovoltaics (solar cells). Students complete a reading passage with questions and an inquiry lab using small photovoltaic cells.