Denmark

This course introduces sociological perspectives on food and eating in everyday life, as well as key sociological concepts and theories with relevance for food and eating. It deals with topics such as the social significance of meals within the family and in institutional settings, identity and the meaning of food and meals, and food poverty. It also examines developments in meal patterns and how societal challenges such as climate change, risks, and health (including body weight management) are dealt with in ordinary food practices. Parallel to the focus on social aspects of food and eating, the course introduces theories of social practices and human action and key sociological concepts such as inequality, stigma, social class, gender, age, and social inclusions and exclusions.

This course focuses on the ability of green infrastructures to contribute to resource management, climate adaptation, and social-cultural performance of urbanized areas. The main focus of the course is on the freshwater cycle in urban settings and there is a special focus on adaptation to more extreme weather conditions, especially stormwater management and flood control. The interdisciplinary course, relevant for urban designers and planners as well as for agronomists, geographers, and biologists, encourages a transfer of scientific knowledge into new urban designs at multiple scales to increase sustainability and climate resilience. The course contains a number of lectures in which relevant knowledge from environmental chemistry, agronomy, climatology, and biology is presented. The lectures are supported by several exercises and study tours for a better understanding. By means of innovative learning methods, the theory is transferred to design criteria and specific design proposals.

Ecotoxicology addresses how chemicals released into the environment impact the biota. This course thus covers all aspects from release of chemical through transport and transformation outside the biota to uptake and effects within the biota. The main body of the course is concerned with distribution and effects within the organism from molecular interactions, impact on organ systems and how these effects at the individual organismal level can translate into highter level biologica, effects in populations, and communities. The course introduces important toxicoloical tools, illustrated in theory and practice and outlines the fundamental elements in chemical risk analysis.

This course discusses the challenges of an increasing demand for meat, milk, and eggs produced in a manner that is environmentally sound and socioeconomically acceptable. It focusses on the production cycles of pig, cattle, and poultry production under Danish conditions. The course investigates the effects of management, housing, breeding, nutrition, productivity, health, animal ethics and welfare, resource consumption, and environmental impact of livestock production. It explores a range of different livestock production systems and works with the opportunities and challenges of implementing sustainable practices within them.

This course provides a basic introduction to human nutrition with emphasis on the underlying molecular mechanisms and aspects. Topics include: an introduction to the anatomy and physiology of the gastrointestinal system, including an introduction to the natural bacterial microbiota in the digestive system and its influence on human nutrition and health; the study types used in human nutrition studies; energy balance and macro nutrients in human nutrition; a detailed mapping of the structure and mechanisms of action of vitamins, and their influence on human health; an overview of minerals and trace elements in food and the importance on health conditions; "functional foods" and selected additives and their mechanism of action and impact on health; the relation between diet and the development of lifestyle diseases. The course involves laboratory exercises of glucose tolerance test after intake of different food components and DEXA body scanning.

This course enables students to work strategically with sustainability and environmental communication in organizations. It introduces key theoretical approaches of special relevance to the topics of environment and sustainability and applies these in order to critically analyze and assess how organizations use communication both to develop a sense of self in relation to the topic of sustainability and to engage in the public space. Students learn to understand, explain, and use discourses as a strategic and tactical resource in order to establish and put credible messages into perspective which may affect the views and opinions of various target groups in relation to the important themes related to sustainability and the environment. The course addresses current practical issues by focusing on the approaches to sustainability and environmental communication that companies, NGOs, mass media, and political organizations use when they enter into dialogue with different stakeholders, including customers, government agencies and institutions, and the general public.

This course provides the basic qualifications needed to use and describe the principles of modern geospatial science and geographic information systems. It provides a conceptual and practical introduction to geographic information systems with emphasis on practical data handling and data analysis. Teaching consists of lectures and practical computer exercises and two minor reports are produced during the course. The course identifies suitable methods to perform spatial analyses common in biological research and monitoring. Analyses is performed in the geographic information system software and documented in a professional scientific report.

This course introduces the extent of the global agriculture and food production and its geographic location. Through a combination of lectures and exercises, the first part of the course identifies the factors that influence and adjust the global need for and production of food, as well as of the global trade with food. It then looks at the impact of different climatic and soil conditions on plant and livestock production in specific regions. In the project work, students go into detail in an individual area.

This course provides an introduction to basic elements of animal behavior and application of ethology (i.e. the study of animal behavior) in relation to livestock farming and keeping of domestic animals. Furthermore, it provides an understanding of how different types of behavior are affected by management and the external environment to enable assessment of these factors on animal welfare. Topics include: domestication; behavior and physiology; motivation; factors controlling behavior; learning and cognition; normal and abnormal behavior in selected farm animal species; human-animal relations; and behavioral variables as welfare indicators.

This course takes as a starting point the expansive understanding of feminism as a value system rather than a style or movement to elucidate and make meaning of contemporary Nordic art within a global context. The course underscores feminism’s historical, theoretical, and activist facets, focusing on a transnational, situated, and intersectional approach to understand feminist practices in and around contemporary Nordic art. Understood in the broadest sense to include other normative-critical approaches such as postcolonialism, in this course feminism is deployed as an emancipatory modality to deconstruct and contextualize the most important issues concerning contemporary art today, including migration, sexuality, race, ecology, and the move towards the digital—and how the Nordic cases interact with, correspond to, and challenge wider global patterns. The course nevertheless provides a solid historical overview of feminism within the realm of art from 1970 onwards and develops an understanding of foundational and more recent feminist theory, as well as the ability to recognize and apply an activist approach to contemporary art. Nordic examples make up the core of the course to provide a nuanced knowledge of the immediate art environment (including visits to local museums, art institutions, and practitioners). With its intersectional and reflexive approach, the course conveys the intergenerational, gender-fluid, heterogeneous, and transnational nature of feminist practices today by contextualizing them within a global framework. to convey the intergenerational, gender-fluid, heterogeneous, and transnational nature of feminist practices today by contextualizing them within a global framework.