Environmental Studies

This course aims to let the students understand the laws of environmental changes and climate change, and enhance their awareness of environmental protection.

It allows students to think about how humans and nature can coexist harmoniously, which significantly enhances students' concepts of sustainable development. Students can apply environmental awareness and sustainable development concepts to their majors and future work.

This course seeks to answer several fundamental questions: Which factors control life in the ocean? How do we know what we know about the ocean? What's at the bottom of the ocean? How does the water in the ocean move? How are human activities and climate change altering the ocean?  

Behavioral Ecology takes an evolutionary perspective to address the mechanisms and processes that have shaped the current form and utility of various aspects of animal behavior. The course includes lectures that cover major topics in Behavioral Ecology and introduce relevant research approaches; literature reading that provides a glimpse of cutting-edge research in the field, as well as a group project that allows students to experience the entire process of conducting a behavior study, practicing the theories and approaches learned from the lectures.    

Required Prerequisite: General Biology.  

Suggested Prerequisites: Ecology and Basic Statistics.  

This course covers major topics in deep-sea ecology, including the physical environments and history, sampling techniques, adaptations of deep-sea organisms, community composition and functions, major habitats, and anthropogenic effects. The course also explores Taiwan’s deep-sea environments and living resources.    

This course examines the techniques and procedures of evaluating environmental consequences arising from human activities, with focus on their application in Hong Kong as prescribed under the Hong Kong Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance, and its Technical Memorandum. 

The course takes an interdisciplinary perspective and approach and is jointly conducted by the Department of Psychology and the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS). It is aimed at those who wish to learn about the complex linkages between psychology, climate change, and sustainability, and apply them in their respective fields of work or study. Explore the ways our changing climate affect individuals and groups, including climate distress and its consequences, the psychological and behavioral factors that can drive the climate crises, and the theories and practices that can support skillful action across individual, collective and system levels. The course draws upon research from several fields, such as evolutionary, cognitive, social, industrial/organizational, and clinical psychology, behavioral economics, and sustainability science. The course includes experiential learning and practices drawing from evidence-based psychological methods (e.g., journaling, listening and communication exercises, values reflections), contemplative methods such as meditations and mindfulness, and nature explorations. The course is taught in English and includes both on-site and online education.

This course presents our planet and its specific features within the solar system and the Universe, as well as its genesis and evolution. The lessons focus on the Earth system, the structure, nature, and dynamics of its solid and fluid envelopes, as well as certain major cycles: the water cycle and the carbon cycle. It also covers the different quantitative and qualitative methods of geological time.

By critically examining the influence of science and technology on the governance of human and non-human communities, this course equips students with theoretical tools to analyze nature politics and reflective skills about the role of science and technology in the world they live in. Topics include public and political problems such as examining the concerns about environmental degradation, extractivism, climate change, development infrastructure, and land distribution. Students examine the framework of (Western) scientific knowledge as objective and truth-revealing, and technological innovations as horizons for progress. “Rendering Nature Technical” explores: (i) how scientific and technological practices shape nature (its elements, dynamics, relationalities), (ii) how nature governance takes place in the interplay of science, technology, and society, (iii) the co-constitution of socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, and, science and technology, (iv) the effects of these dynamics on power, contestation and resistance in distributional conflicts. 

In this course, students gain a fundamental understanding of the functioning of international energy markets and perform sound analyses on energy markets. Students learn about the national and international transport and consumption of the main energy sources. Topics also include external costs and steering instruments, insights into newest developments, and how to do cost accounting and capital budgeting with respect to energy economics. 

This course examines various environmental challenges in contemporary societies from a sociological perspective. Recognizing that environmental problems are often intricately connected with the conditions of societies that they are situated in, it explores the processes underlying social and environmental changes as well as the consequences that those processes may entail at national, regional, and global levels. Substantive topics to be covered include limits of growth and development, sustainable production and consumption, climate change and global governance, and environmental movement.