Environmental Studies

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. At the end of the course, students know how to interpret the characteristics of the contemporary city in a changing climate. The student will know the main available tools and methods to understand, plan, and design adaptive communities, taking into account the peculiarities of diverse context (urban, rural, island, mountain). Greening and ecosystem services are explored as a strong driver of resilience and sustainability, while the principle of environmental and climate justice is integrated throughout the course.

The course begins with an introduction to planning principles, processes, methods, and tools to support students' understanding around the concept of sustainability, resilience, and planning. Planning is considered in both rural and urban environments, considering those as a complex socio-ecological system. Around the idea of planning, the course touches upon the following topics: planning in a changing climate, but how is the climate changing?; climate and environmental justice; climate risks in urban and rural areas; urban areas: greening the city; rural regeneration theory and practice from case studies and projects; and landscape management and values.

The course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Environmental Humanities, providing insight into this dynamic and emerging area and demonstrating how to integrate humanities subjects and perspectives into other domains of research and policy. Through a series of case studies (e.g., what can be learned from literature, history, and philosophy about climate change, the human relationship with nature, and the role of emotions in sustainability debates), the course offers basic knowledge on how to broaden, understand, and critically examine environmental issues and sustainability efforts.

This course introduces students to the core challenges and responses associated with climate change, with an emphasis on the interplay between science, policy, politics, and communication. It explores four main dimensions: the scientific and socio-political foundations of climate change; the environmental, social, and economic impacts it creates; strategies for mitigation and adaptation; and the political and institutional contexts in which these responses are developed and contested. Students examine climate governance at multiple levels, from international negotiations under the UNFCCC to national action plans and local government climate strategies, with attention to the political dynamics that shape ambition and implementation. The course also considers the role of communication in influencing public understanding, political debate, and policy effectiveness, including how climate issues are framed, contested, and mobilized across different actors and scales. By combining conceptual perspectives with applied case studies, students gain the knowledge and critical skills to evaluate climate policies, understand the political struggles underpinning them, and reflect on the role of communication in advancing effective and equitable climate action.

This course covers the structure and function of the ecosystem and the cycle of energy and matter through a combination of lectures and indoor and outdoor experiments. 

Topics include Development of concepts in ecosystem science,  Structure of terrestrial ecosystems, Carbon balance, Nutrient and water balance, Additional approaches, Energy, water, and carbon balance, Water use, Canopy system, Soil environment, Biological process in soils, NPP, Decomposition. 

This course provides the knowledge and understanding about how cost and environmental issues affect the choice of design solutions and which measures need a longer-term perspective than others, in order to get back the investment costs or make the building sustainable. This course also provides the knowledge and understanding related to different types of actors’ interests (city-owned property owners, private property owners, property developers (build and sell), private homeowners, builders, and manufacturers). Also included are aspects of barriers and possibilities. The course presents methodology and tools for determining life cycle perspective issues like life-cycle costs and environmental certification. This can be used for evaluation, system design and to produce convincing arguments and facts for the client.

Within a theoretical and learning-by-doing context, this course focuses on solving problems in the field of wildlife ecology and conservation. The problem-based learning approach is based on the idea that it is an effective and durable way to develop into a professional. Lectures provide the needed theory, and assignments are offered to obtain hands on experience with quantitative data analyses. During these assignments, students use advanced methodologies and software (for example excel, R, and conservation planning programs) to address problems spanning a wide range of wildlife conservation issues such as threats to species, genetic analysis, population viability analysis, the role of protected areas, the human context to conservation, and ecosystem/landscape management and planning. Furthermore, students work in groups on a case study that allow them to address species conservation issues using advanced methodologies learned earlier during the course. A working experience with excel is required (ability to make graphs and perform basic calculations and statistics). Assumed Knowledge in PEN10503 Ecology I; PEN20503 Ecology II; WEC20803 Applied Animal Ecology.

This course studies the relationship between energy and urbanization, taking a global approach that gives pride of place to cities in the Global South and emphasizing a socio-material perspective and an understanding of the social practices and hierarchies that structure cities. Furthermore, energy governance is a major issue in urban policy today, particularly in the context of ecological transition. Therefore, it studies urban energy, taking into account the long term and also looking ahead to the future. In terms of methodology, the course is rooted in geography. It uses and familiarize students with certain geographical methods such as cartography and graphic visualization. It also encourages students to engage directly and critically with social science works in the form of articles and books, leading to presentations and lectures, as well as a graded written assignment.

This course examines how life arose and evolved into the myriad of forms it takes today. The course introduces the principles of evolution and explores the tree of life, highlighting the major evolutionary advances that have enabled organisms to exploit every habitat on Earth. The major living groups of microbes, plants and animals are presented and the key features of their biology are discussed and illustrated. A wide range of examples are given, spanning microbial parasites, plants, fungi, jellyfish and corals, worms, insects, crustaceans, fish, birds, mammals. The course examines how they feed, survive and reproduce, and, importantly, how they impact our daily lives.

Today's climate and ecological issues require a great transformation in the perception of human life and the relationship of humans to nature as a whole. Ecological and environmental history is a perspective and method of history to respond to the great transformation.  

This course covers major research achievements and methods of ecological and environmental history from a global perspective and from a standpoint that history is no longer the history of humans, but the history of interactions between humans and other living things and materials. As a result, we expand our perception of history by considering the achievements and limitations of modern civilization. 

Topics include Environmental history – what is it, Imjin War, Colonial environment, Forestry/Heat, Imperial weather/Imperial Japan/Republican China, Korean War and environmental history, North Korea and environment, South Korea/post Korean War rebuilding, Park Chung-Hee era, Environment and Developmental dictatorship, legacy. 

In special cases and with the approval of the instructor concerned, a student may carry out directed studies of specific problems in natural resources conservation.