Environmental Studies

The course examines key biogeographical and ecological topics from both physical and human perspectives. This interdisciplinary approach is essential for the understanding and management of environmental problems that involve biological diversity and ecological communities. The course provides students not just with an essential grounding in the fundamentals of biogeography and ecology, but also an appreciation of how this is mediated by society. These skills are valuable for both physical and human geographers and are a central facet of environmental geography.  Most specifically, the course focuses on biodiversity, ecological systems, and ecosystem services with a focus on current threats, management, and conservation. 

The earth’s atmosphere is a wonderfully vibrant environment full of fun scientific stories. The atmosphere shapes the quality of the air we breathe; interacts with other parts of the environment; and is a reservoir of key components of critical earth processes, including photosynthesis and climate change. This course focus on topics of atmospheric composition and structure; energy balance; weather systems; air pollution; greenhouses gases, and climate change. 

This course provides international students with an overview of Danish architecture and urban planning over the last 100 years with an emphasis on the human perspective of architecture. Examples of architecture with a Nordic approach to the planning and design of the physical environment are demonstrated. The course discusses the key elements of culture, climate, and scale in relations to the way the profession and the Nordic welfare states have been dealing with the international trends and styles as they have been translated into the local settings. Field trips to explore examples of the architecture and planning are important elements of this lecture based course.

This is an laurea magistrale course and is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course introduces students to the emerging field of urban studies in connection to climate change issues. The principle topics covered include the relationship between two global driving forces: urbanization and climate change; different theoretical and methodological tools used to understand, manage, and deal with the transformation of cities facing climate; and different approaches that promote more sustainable and resilient forms of urbanization and urban life. Climate change and unprecedented planetary urbanization remain two of the most urgent issues of our time, reshaping societies. Climate change has worldwide implications - from the exacerbation of urban inequalities, to the loss of environmental, social and economic security. In this regard, sustainable urbanization has moved more and more to the forefront of policy agendas and research. The course uses several theoretical approaches and empirical studies, and focuses on the forms and impact of urbanization processes; how climate change impacts different social groups in our urban systems; and post-carbon cities: adaptation and mitigation strategies being currently implemented.

In this course, students discuss current topics related to global environmental change. Topics include nature of contemporary/ongoing global warming; recent climate variability: models and reconstructions; discerning natural versus anthropogenic changes; future sea level rise; stability of ice sheets; atmospheric changes, rainfall, and extreme weather; future climate change predictions; and dangerous climate change & 2 degree warming.