Environmental Studies

The International Internship course develops vital business skills employers are actively seeking in job candidates. This course is comprised of two parts: an internship, and a hybrid academic seminar. Students are placed in an internship within a sector related to their professional ambitions. The hybrid academic seminar, conducted both online and in-person, analyzes and evaluates the workplace culture and the daily working environment students experience. The course is divided into eight career readiness competency modules as set out by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which guide the course’s learning objectives. During the academic seminar, students reflect weekly on their internship experience within the context of their host culture by comparing and contrasting their experiences with their global internship placement with that of their home culture. Students reflect on their experiences in their internship, the role they have played in the evolution of their experience in their internship placement, and the experiences of their peers in their internship placements. Students develop a greater awareness of their strengths relative to the career readiness competencies, the subtleties and complexities of integrating into a cross-cultural work environment, and how to build and maintain a career search portfolio.

Through examples of natural resources (minerals, oil, water, and rare earths) this course assesses the current situation of these resources at the quantitative level. It demonstrates various and often competing uses of these resources by our societies, and the current quantitative and qualitative problems in different regions of the world. The course investigates the tensions (past, present, future) that exist around these resources due to their distribution in relation to need, and sometimes due to their scarcity. It highlights the complexity of managing these resources, as will the complexity of the solutions to be implemented.

This is an introduction to the field of Environmental Science, with a focus on ecosystems and biodiversity. The course focuses on how human disturbances affect individuals, populations, and communities. The course also discusses which mechanisms organisms have developed to deal with these stressors. In addition, the course examines the key methods which are available to study environmental impacts (e.g. field, modelling and lab studies), to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of these tools when assessing environmental impacts. Students develop a population model, and use the model to assess impacts of anthropogenic stressors in the population of animals. Students also conduct a group research project, which includes basic study design and data collection. Students gain theoretical insights in the classroom, and apply this knowledge during the research project.

This course introduces the appropriate use of specific terminology for ecology and provides an awareness and understanding of interactions between the environment and the living beings. It covers the initial approach of ecology and main ecological notions related to terrestrial and marine systems as well as animal and plant domains. Topics include ecology in history, ecological factors, structure and dynamics of populations, and community ecology and structure of ecosystems.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to environmental and natural resource economics. It is assumed that students have a good grounding in basic microeconomics. Core components of the course include: environmental sustainability concepts and ethics; the welfare economic foundation of environmental economics; externalities and the design of policy instruments to address environmental problems; the economic concept of value and measurement of environmental benefits using non-market valuation methods; and optimal utilization of renewable and non-renewable natural resources. The course develops a systematic understanding of the economic rationale behind the use of environmental policy instruments, economic valuation principles, and criteria for optimal use of natural resources. Through examples, the course examines how principles of environmental and natural resource economics have been applied or are being proposed to address a range of sustainability concerns. These include sustainable management of water, sustainable use of terrestrial and marine resource and biodiversity conservation, mitigation of climate change and adaptation to its impacts, and promotion of sustainable consumption and production.   

This course focuses on the construction of climate models. It starts with a very simple model of a surface (for example the earth) that is heated by solar radiation. Step by step this model is expanded into a simple climate model that discusses various concepts from physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics. Students then examine how complex scientific climate models work. Finally, the climate projections as presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are examined.

Environmental issues pose increasingly difficult challenges to our societies. What is the nature of these challenges? Where have they come from? How have political institutions adapted to them, at the national and international levels? What further changes might be necessary to better meet them? How might these changes come about? What effects might they have on the future of politics? This course will engage these kinds of questions as an introduction to some theoretical and practical dimensions of environmental politics.