Japan

This class is an introductory geology course to understand the fundamental issues of Earth Sciences.  The course addresses the basics of Mineralogy, Petrology, Volcanology, Geochemistry and Experimental Mineral Physics. Lectures will be given weekly by three Associate Professors and one lecturer. 

This course provides a theoretical and practical introduction to the field of peace education. It examines philosophical, psychological, cultural, pedagogical, and curricular elements of peace education as well as program evaluation issues in peace education, and as such, students will develop an understanding of the theories and practices of effective peace education in schools, workplaces, communities, or other relevant contexts. At ICU, peace education can be placed within the larger interdisciplinary framework of international education, i.e., multicultural studies, development education, environmental education, peace studies, international service learning, community and social psychology, gender studies, and international relations. Peace education has emerged over the last sixty years as a platform to achieve the goals set out in the mandate of the United Nations to create a global culture of peace. Cultures of peace aim to promote respect for life and non-violent methods of resolving conflict using education (broadly defined) with a focus on teaching the values of tolerance and human rights. Education as a form of cultural violence is being increasingly examined by many national and international organizations. 

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1) Understand, analyze, and compare basic principles and theories of peace education;
2) Apply the knowledge of the above principles and theories to specific peace education problems, questions, and/or issues, and
3) Understand the basic mechanics of evaluating peace education’s pedagogical or instructional strategies using empowerment evaluation methods.
 

This course focuses on the dynamic implications of the links between the prevailing unprecedented global resource extraction and utilization; high input-high output industrial production, and resource scarcity. This allows one to conceive the relationships between the consequences of overexploitation of resources and irreversible material transformation in the production system, and their crucially important implications for resource efficiency and environmental efficiency.  

This course also seeks to guide students to make mental connections across disciplines with real life experiences based on comprehensive synthesis of evidence of the unsustainable resource consumption and sustainability practices in resource management. Here, it places great emphasis in developing critical thinking and analytical skills among students in identifying policy responses to the economic and environmental effects of overexploitation of natural resources.  

The foregoing takes the class to a broad-spectrum of debates relating to the properties of natural resources; the principles of resource efficiency; resource sustainability and environmental efficiency; environmental impacts of irreversible input-output resource conversions, and sustainable resource consumption and conservation, among other subjects of interest.