On behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), take this quiz to test your knowledge of Turkey's politics, economy, history, and more.
On behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), take this quiz to test your knowledge of the concepts and controversies surrounding U.S. trade.
On behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), take this quiz to test your knowledge of the major events of World War II, from Normandy to Nagasaki.
Required for all Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences majors in the Environmental Science track, this course is an introduction to current research in the field. Stresses integration of central scientific concepts in environmental policy making and the chemistry, biology, and geology environmental science tracks. Revisits selected core themes for students who have already acquired a basic understanding of environmental science concepts. The topic for this term is geoengineering.
This project is designed to introduce students to a local hydrogeologic problem or issue of interest to the community. The project requires the students to learn about their local groundwater environment and apply principles and concepts that they learn in the classroom to an issue that is of concern to the public. This project provides a good introduction to "real world" problems that the students are likely to encounter as professionals. Students are required to synthesize information from a variety of sources and develop their own assessment of the problem and also to make recommendations based on their professional opinions.
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In this activity, students engage in a simulation of the international negotiation process in order to convey how the international community is responding to climate change. Participants learn firsthand about the interests of different countries and the range of policy responses to mitigate future climate change.
This course explores the issue of human trafficking for forced labour and sexual slavery, focusing on its representation in recent scholarly accounts and advocacy as well as in other media. Ethnographic and fictional readings along with media analysis help to develop a contextualized and comparative understanding of the phenomena in both past and present contexts. It examines the wide range of factors and agents that enable these practices, such as technology, cultural practices, social and economic conditions, and the role of governments and international organizations. The course also discusses the analytical, moral and methodological questions of researching, writing, and representing trafficking and slavery.
This course examines the nature of attitudes, beliefs, and values, and the influences which indiviudals' attitudes have upon their behavior. Various theories of attitude organization and attitude change are discussed, and the development of social attitudes is explored by examining the differential impact of the family, the educational system, the mass media, and the general social environment. The changing content of public opinion over time and its relationship to the political system are also discussed.
With the help of two climate experts, this video discusses how the social cost of carbon is calculated, how it should, perhaps, be calculated, and why the effort to quantify this value is necessary despite its imperfections.
This course seeks to provide students with a general understanding of the form of collective action known as the social movement. Our task will be guided by the close examination of several twentieth century social movements in the United States. We will read about the U.S. civil rights, the unemployed workers’, welfare rights, pro-choice / pro-life and gay rights movements. We will compare and contrast certain of these movements with their counterparts in other countries. For all, we will identify the reasons for their successes and failures.
Social Systems Theory: Niklas Luhmann is a project developed by sociology students at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. The aim of the project is to collect quality information available on the Internet about the theoretical proposal of Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist with a great influence on the discipline. This work is part of the course Complexity and Systems Theory, taught at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences.
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Teoría General de los Sistemas Sociales: Niklas Luhmann es un proyecto desarrollado por estudiantes de sociología de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. El objetivo del proyecto es recopilar información de calidad disponible en Internet acerca de la propuesta teórica de Niklas Luhmann, sociólogo alemán con una gran influencia en la disciplina. Este trabajo forma parte del curso Complejidad y Teoría de Sistemas, impartido en la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales
12.000 Solving Complex Problems is designed to provide students the opportunity to work as part of a team to propose solutions to a complex problem that requires an interdisciplinary approach. For the students of the class of 2013, 12.000 will revolve around the issues associated with what we can and must do about the steadily increasing amounts CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere.
12.000 is a core course for the MIT Terrascope freshman learning community. Each year’s class explores a different problem in detail through the study of complementary case histories and the development of creative solution strategies. It includes training in Web site development, effective written and oral communication, and team building. Initially developed with major financial support from the d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education, 12.000 is designed to enhance the freshman experience by helping students develop contexts for other subjects in the sciences and humanities, and by helping them to establish learning communities that include upperclassmen, faculty, MIT alumni, and professionals in science and engineering fields.
Solving Complex Problems provides an opportunity for entering freshmen to gain first-hand experience with working as part of a team to develop effective approaches to complex problems in Earth system science and engineering that do not have straightforward solutions. The subject includes training in a variety of skills, ranging from library research to Web Design.
Each year’s course explores a different problem in detail through the study of complimentary case histories and the development of creative solution strategies. Beginning in 2000 as an educational experiment sponsored by MIT’s Committee on the Undergraduate Program, and receiving major financial support from the Alex and Britt d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in MIT Education, the subject is designed to enhance the first-semester freshman experience by helping students develop contexts for other subjects in the sciences and humanities, and by helping them to establish learning communities that include upperclassmen, faculty, MIT alumni, and professionals from many walks of life.
In Fall 2003, students from the Class of 2007 were challenged with “Mission 2007”:
To design the most “environmentally correct” strategy for oil exploration and extraction in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); and
To perform a cost-benefit analysis in order to evaluate whether or not the hydrocarbon resources that might be extracted from beneath ANWR are worth the environmental damage that might result from the process.
Sounds of War, by Susanna Hast, is a book on the aesthetics of war experience in Chechnya. It includes theory on, and stories of, compassion, dance, children’s agency and love. It is not simply a book to be read, but to be listened to. The chapters begin with the author’s own songs expressing research findings and methodology in musical form. Susanna Hast is Academy of Finland postdoctoral researcher with a project “Bodies in War, Bodies in Dance” (2017–2020) at the Theatre Academy Helsinki, University of the Arts. She does artistic research on emotions, embodiment and war and teaches dance for immigrant and asylum-seeking women in Finland.
The 2014 Russia–Ukraine conflict has transformed relations between Russia and the West into what many are calling a new cold war. The West has slowly come to understand that Russia’s annexations and interventions, interference in elections, cyber warfare, disinformation, assassinations in Europe and support for anti-EU populists emerge from Vladimir Putin’s belief that Russia is at war with the West. This book shows that the crisis has deep roots in Russia’s inability to come to terms with an independent Ukrainian state, Moscow’s view of the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions as Western conspiracies and, finally, its inability to understand that most Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not want to rejoin Russia. In Moscow’s eyes, Ukraine is central to rebuilding a sphere of influence within the former Soviet space and to re-establishing Russia as a great power. The book shows that the wide range of ‘hybrid’ tactics that Russia has deployed show continuity with the actions of the Soviet-era security services.
This thought experiment, based on an essay by Professor Thomas Nagel, Philosopher at New York University, encourages students to question the morality of intervention. Professor Nagel attempted to liberate a spider he found living in a urinal from it is seemingly terrible living situation, only to find it dead the next day. Wracked with guilt, he began to question his decision. Should he have moved the spider? What would you have done?
An introductory text on US State and Local Government suitable for undergraduate studies (upper/lower division). Originally published by Oregon State University (download link: https://open.oregonstate.education/government/, the authors have been regularly updating the text. Virginia edition updated by James J. Tuite.
Video lectures available at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCInj8bmD5BUmulEU1Esv98L3fljUuFnq
12.103 explores the role of scientific knowledge, discovery, method, and argument in environmental policymaking from both idealistic and realistic perspectives. The course will use case studies of science-intensive environmental controversies to study how science was used and abused in the policymaking process. Case studies include: global warming, biodiversity loss, and nuclear waste disposal siting. Subject includes intensive practice in the writing and presentation of “position statements” on environmental science issues.
This assignment provides students a storytelling structure that allows for their own voice and creativity to be applied. This is accomplished through the selection of an audience for a recorded voicemail and the climate science/societal issues of meaning to them from a United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) event.
According to Professor Aeon Skoble of Bridgewater State University, the word “value” has very different meanings for economists and philosophers. Economists view value as subjective to reflect individual tastes and preferences. Philosophers, on the other hand, use the term objectively, to refer to concepts such as rights. In this video, Professor Skoble explains how these different conceptions actually compliment each other.