Environmental Studies

This course explores how poetry can address sustainability issues relevant to participants' professional, personal, and academic lives. Participants are encouraged to use poetry to deepen their connection with sustainability-related themes that are meaningful to them. It aims to use poetry's emotional impact to transform readers into active agents of change. The course extends poetry's potential beyond the literature classroom, encouraging participants to decenter human perspectives through the analysis of poems. The course provides a basic introduction to the tools required for analyzing poetry and facilitates the application of these to poems on various sustainability topics. Concepts from poetry analysis that are covered include the use of figurative language, diction, tone, as well as form and structure. Additionally, the course explores poetry and affective responses by exploring how poetry engages emotions. The course delves into both individual and collaborative responses to poetry and how such responses reshape perceptions of sustainability issues through an affective/reader-response lens. A creative-writing component is also integrated into the course. Participants use the writing of poetry to explore sustainability themes.

Climate change is a global policy challenge whose solutions need to transcend national borders to address its multilayered causes and courses of action. This course reflects on transnational climate governance through the case of the EU Green Deal by exploring case by case its relevant stakeholders: in-house policymakers, member states, civil society, private and international actors. These stakeholders are viewed in parallel to climate policy domains (social and intergenerational justice, carbon markets, sustainable finance), and its tools (lobbying, negotiations and legislative procedures). This course provides a comprehensive approach to studying climate governance, combining theoretical concepts with practical examples, engaging students with real-life policy developments.

This course covers the choice and application of univariate and multivariate statistical techniques and tests, for the interpretation of ecological field data. The choice of appropriate test is given attention in relation to the type of data under investigation. The necessary theoretical statistical background is expected to be present. The use of software (R, Excel, Ecological packages) for the analysis of field data is highlighted and exercised. Attention is paid to the sequence: hypothesis, choice of tests, interpretation of statistical results, and ecological meaning of outcome with respect to the hypothesis. Emphasis is placed on the use of data from plant-animal interactions and studies on individual plant or animal species.

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.

This course examines examines sustainability at the national and international scale. It covers existing global initiatives to achieve sustainability, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, and will explore new possibilities for governance of sustainability. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course consists of two modules: Marine Renewable Energy and Bioenergy, Hydrogen, and Heat Recovery Systems. 

For Marine Renewable Energy, students acquire the ability to assess marine renewable energy potential and to conceptually design energy devices. They are able to assess marine energy potential (wind, waves, tides, currents, etc.) and have knowledge about devices for marine energy harvesting and technological challenges, and assessment of environmental, social, and economic impacts. The module covers the following topics: Marine renewable energy: sources (wind, wave, tide) and variability; Type of marine renewable energy converters; Environmental impact and cost of MRE devices; Optimal mixing of MRE; Multi-use marine areas and integration of different economic activities: MRE, aquaculture, tourism, maritime hubs; and Re-purposing of O&G platforms.

Bioenergy, Hydrogen and Heat Recovery Systems module provides the student with knowledge and understanding about: Biomass and alternative fuels for energy application: production, treatment and storage, thermochemical conversion, environmental and economic aspects; Hydrogen for energy and transport applications: characteristics, production, gas-to-power (G2P) and power-to-gas (P2G) systems, technologies for upgrading fuels (synthetic methane), fields of application, integration into the existing infrastructure; Heat recovery systems: cycles and working principle of the main heat-to-power (H2P) technologies (Organic Rankine Cycle and Stirling engine). After completion of the course the students should (i) gain general competence related to bioenergy and hydrogen-based systems and their potential in future energy supply; (ii) working with cross-cutting problems related to bioenergy and hydrogen; (iii) analyzing potential and characteristics of Organic Rankine Cycle systems heat recovery from medium and low-temperature heat sources. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course provides students with the scientific foundation of modern, anthropogenic climate change and its impacts. The course focuses on (1) the observational evidence of present climate change, (2) fundamental physical processes that shape climate (e.g. solar variability, orbital mechanics, greenhouse gases, the carbon cycle, atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and aerosols), (3) the modern description of climate change (radiative forcing, feedbacks, climate sensitivity) and (4) the physical understanding of predictions of future climate change (for example, how global warming will impact the global water cycle). At the end of the course, students are able to understand and discuss about material consequences of climate change, like sea level change, variations in precipitation, extreme events and abrupt climate change. This course also examines the science behind mitigation and adaptation proposals.

This course explores key sustainable development challenges, including climate change, poverty, inequality and social justice. It explores the concept of sustainable development and assesses the effectiveness of a range of approaches to development. The role of government, business and civil society in addressing global challenges is considered.

What are the roots of our concern for the environment? What did environmental activism look like in the 1960s, the 1930s or even the 1870s? This course offers a survey of where environmentalism has come from and where it is going. This course provides students with a deeper appreciation for the history of environmentalism. We learn about links between the development of the sciences of the environment and environmentalism as a social movement. The geographical focus in this course is on Europe and North America. However, students also locate and interrogate how environmental concern and policy has developed in various parts of the globe. Students note the experiences and contributions of different identity groups. In doing so, they consider the impact of and reactions to European imperialism and postcolonial globalization. They also examine and critique the role of the United Nations and other international organizations in environmental affairs.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The purpose of the course is to provide students with a background in science to the methods and policy tools used in environmental and resource economics in order to achieve efficient management of pollution and environmental resources. More specifically, the course will introduce the concept of environmental externalities as the main source of environmental degradation, and the policy instruments used to correct these externalities. The course also includes an introduction to climate change economics and climate policy. Student having successfully completed the course are expected have a good understanding of issues and economic policies related to controlling environmental pollution and climate change. The course covers the two main approaches to the economics of the environment and natural resources - Environmental economics and Ecological economics - with a special focus on the Economics of climate change.