University College Dublin

The Irish geological record contains over a billion years of Earth history preserving memories of the uplift of Himalayan-sized mountains, volcanic eruptions, warm tropical seas, and polar ice caps. This course introduces through field classes and online material how we can interpret the ancient rock record to reveal the past, and explore the links between the bedrock beneath us and today’s landscape and society. Students visit sites of outstanding geological interest and beautiful scenery in North and South County Dublin. Students are required to attend field classes, and the dates of field classes cannot be changed.

This course provides a comprehensive exploration of the principles and applications of building energy systems. The course is for students in engineering and architecture, focusing on the intersection of energy efficiency, electrical systems, and building design. Topics include building energy analysis, psychrometrics, steady state and seasonal analysis, electricity supply system, electrical services in buildings, lightning protection.

This course introduces the concepts behind the analysis of renewable energy systems. Choice awareness of energy systems are considered in the uptake of renewable energy systems. The fundamentals of generation, cogeneration, and tri-generation are explored for low-carbon/renewable energy systems. Methods and tools for hybrid energy systems integration and optimization to provide specified service loads (electricity, heating, and cooling) are applied considering energy flows, energy systems integration, and bases for sustainable energy systems. Design and analyses of renewables is based on special purpose computer tools with capability for integration of renewable energy resources and/or conversion technologies for multiple energy systems/sectors including energy demand and supply modelling.

This course investigates how earth scientists reconstruct past climates, and demonstrate, using selected case studies, what drives climate change and how ecosystems respond to these forcing factors. Upon successful completion of the course, students are able to understand the various sources of sedimentological, chemical, and biological data (proxies) earth and environmental scientists use to reconstruct ancient environments and climates, with particular emphasis on environmental reconstructions using microfossils and isotopic data; the basic principles of stratigraphy; how changes in sedimentary sequences over time record phenomena such as changes in sea level, and astronomical forcing of climate; and a series of key events involving global environmental change that are recorded in the geological record of Ireland (including snowball Earth events, carboniferous palaeoenvironments, and landscape evolution over the past few thousand years). This course is taught online. 

In this course, students learn the fundamentals of spatial information, spatial querying, spatial information systems, and geometric problems involved in a spatial information system. They learn details about the spatial data formats (raster and vector), spatial relations (with particular emphasis on topological relations), spatial data structures, digital terrain modelling, geometric problems arising in spatial information systems, and algorithms to solve them. They develop a critical understanding of the different approaches to storing and manipulating spatial data: the loosely coupled approach of classical GIS versus the integrated approach of spatial database management systems. Students also analyze the Oracle Spatial object-relational model for storing and indexing spatial data. These notions complement their knowledge of other types of information systems seen in other computer science courses.

This course focuses on the operations of narrative in modern Irish literature and drama from the 19th century to the present. Of particular importance are the roles of writers in the construction of powerful narratives of national identity at key moments in Irish history, and the subsequent interrogation of them by later generations of Irish writers. The preoccupation with the act of storytelling itself within Irish writing is also explored. Students are encouraged to engage in detail with the primary texts and to explore a range of theoretical issues in relation to narrative, postcoloniality, feminism, and cultural materialism. 

This course provides an introduction to astronomy, from the earliest theories through to the most current scientific knowledge of the universe. Topics include the solar system, extrasolar planets, the sun, stars and their evolution, black holes, gravitational waves and the Big Bang. There is an emphasis on the role of space-based technology in our understanding of the formation and evolution of the universe and its contents. This course is not highly mathematical or quantitative and is probably not appealing to students seeking a rigorous mathematical introduction to the subject.

The best possible introduction to philosophy as a subject is through engagement with Ancient Greek Philosophy. In this course, students look at some of Plato's writings about his friend and mentor Socrates, in particular those writings that bear on the trial and death of Socrates. These include Plato's APOLOGY, EUTHYPHRO, and CRITO, a series of short, lively dialogues that offer excellent introductions not only to Socrates, but to the practice of philosophy itself. Students also look back at the earliest Greek philosophers, such as Parmenides and Heraclitus, and forward to Aristotle and beyond. But the central focus of this course is on the figure of Socrates, and his impact on philosophy.

Tales and tellers are core to the narrative art. Within the framework of folkloristics different genres of narrative are described, and their traits discussed. International Folktales and Legends create the corpus under examination. Irish examples of folk narrative are analyzed individually, and then are set within the framework of folkloristic theories. Similarities and differences between oral and literary narrative are illustrated, and the influences of folklore on the literature of Ireland are also discussed. By the end of this course, students are well acquainted with the standard reference works concerned with the cataloguing and analysis of oral narrative, and are versed in various theoretical approaches to the subject - such as psychoanalysis, functionalism, formalism, structuralism, and ethnography.