Earth & Space Sciences

This intercultural collaborative learning course deepens one's understanding of geological topics. It discusses the geological characteristics that differ from country to country, relating the impact of these characteristics on technology, resources, and disaster prevention. The course covers earth history; geological structural analysis, technology of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and includes a required field trip to the Geological Museum of the National Institute of Advanced Industrical Science and Technology (AIST) in Tsukuba City. 

This course presents the main geological characteristics of marine environments (excluding the water column). It examines the dynamics of the various structural entities that make up oceanic domains—mid‑ocean ridges, subduction zones, abyssal plains, continental margins, oceanic plateaus, and islands—and the sedimentary processes that occur within them. These elements are situated within the broader framework of lithospheric plate dynamics. The course combines classroom lectures, guided practical sessions involving the analysis of oceanographic data, and fieldwork. In addition, a guest lecture addresses current global issues affecting marine domains at the international scale.

This course covers issues involved in global environmental changes and introduces system thinking, which is used in natural and social sciences. The course covers the following topics: 

1: Global Change: Overview
2: System Diagram
3: Daisyworld
4: Global Energy Balance
5: The Atmospheric Circulation System
6: The Circulation of the Oceans
7: The Carbon Cycle
8: Long-Term Climate Regulation
9: Faint Young Sun Paradox, Early Earth
10: Short-Term Climate Variability
11: Global Warming and An Inconvenient Truth
12: Kepler and Milankovitch
13: Ozone Depletion

This course introduces the issues surrounding water in terms of management, sustainable development, and resource protection. Lectures, tutorials, and practical work are taught in various fields: hydrology, hydrogeology, mass transfer, and drilling. The water cycle is analyzed in detail through its different processes and associated mechanisms, with the goal of establishing hydrological and material budgets for the study of watersheds. A case‑study project is carried out during the semester, allowing students to put theory into practice and to develop an initial methodological and scientific approach in preparation for a future professional or research career. In hydrogeology, the basic principles are taught regarding flows, aquifers, and associated groundwater bodies.

This course provides a foundational understanding of dynamic oceanography, including both global and regional ocean circulation, ocean–atmosphere interactions, as well as the basic equations used to describe fluid motion. A field-based component, involving embarkation on research vessels, familiarizes students with real working conditions in the marine environment and introduces them to observational techniques and data collection at sea.

This course provides both fundamental and advanced knowledge in chemical oceanography, specifically to describe the chemistry of seawater and to present the processes that control its composition. The course offers a quantitative approach to material transfer processes at environmental interfaces, as well as their interactions with the oceanic biosphere, and details the (bio)geochemical processes responsible for modifying these transfers across time and space. The lectures cover topics such as the chemical composition of seawater, inputs of dissolved and particulate material to the ocean, elemental cycles, gases in seawater and ocean–atmosphere exchanges, redox conditions in the ocean, the use and relevance of stable and radioactive isotopes, particle transfer from the ocean surface to the sediments, and material exchanges between the oceanic crust and seawater. The course is complemented by a field excursion in a coastal environment involving sample collection, as well as tutorials and laboratory practical sessions during which the collected samples are analyzed.

This course explores the fundamental nature of the main groups of materials which constitute planets such as the Earth, and develops an understanding of how atomic structure of materials ultimately defines planetary processes. In Part A: From atoms to minerals, students briefly review atomic theory, consider how atoms are arranged in crystalline materials and how this, ultimately, controls material properties. Interaction of crystalline materials with light, X-rays, and electrons are used to introduce the theoretical and practical basis behind analytical techniques used to study Earth and planetary materials. In Part B: Planetary building blocks, students review the main groups of solid materials which constitute planets such as the Earth, considering how structure, chemistry, physical properties, and occurrence are interrelated. In Part C: Modelling chemical processes, students consider how the stability and occurrence of materials can be predicted and determined numerically, and consider factors governing the rates at which natural processes occur.

The course presents a general view of the current scientific understanding of the Universe with its components, including basic notions on its physical and observational fundaments. It teaching methdology includes lectures, tutoring sessions, and study of the night at an astronomic observatory.

This course examines how normal processes of the earth-atmosphere-hydrosphere-space systems result in events that are capable of dealing disastrous blows to humans on the scale of individual lives to civilizations. It focuses on the geologic processes of events such as earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, floods, hurricanes, tsunami, tornadoes, climate change, and asteroid impacts, and their local, national and global repercussions. In particular, It looks at the spatial and temporal occurrences of these hazards, methods and processes for hazard preparedness, response and recovery, and the social, economic and policy aspects that affect and, in many cases, compound the magnitude of the disasters associated with these natural phenomena. 

This course provides basic knowledge of the relationship between climate and forest ecosystems. This course consists of two sections: the first section introduces basic information about the Earth and climate, while the second section deals with terrestrial plant ecology.