Environmental Studies

This series of creative workshops explores environment, climate crisis, and more-than-human/human interdependence by composing multimodal texts in response to recent Copenhagen University and international research. A background in natural sciences is not required but the course necessitates a curiosity and willingness to experiment creatively with the environmental knowledge gained thanks to independent study, classroom exchanges, field trips, and guests (scientists, activists, and artists). These creative collaborations rethink such concepts as "nature," "sustainability," and "care" by reading, listening to, and watching a variety of academic, literary, and artistic texts. The course combine science, emotion, and creative expression not only to describe environmental loss, grief, and vulnerability but also to celebrate the Earth and diversity. It encourages appreciation of the complexity of ecological processes and interactions through an individual project that investigates an environmental subject and experiments with diverse forms of communicating it to varied audiences. The course produces research-based, hybrid, multimodal works-in-progress (which may develop beyond the course) which become forms of green thinking, slow art, activism and stewardship.

This course explores the interdependencies between natural systems and human disease in a time of rapid environmental change. Acknowledging diverse and changing perspectives on health and the environment across history and cultures, students are introduced to emerging concepts and issues in this field, fundamental approaches to assess evidence for causal relationships between environment and disease as well as begin to develop an understanding of the complex socioecological systems within which remedial action can be taken.

This course engages real-world cases of resource competition such as conflicts around land, water, green grabbing, mining, or infrastructure development. It analyses the dynamics of contention in these cases, identifying patterns of power and exclusion, and designing pathways for constructive engagement. Cases are developed together with governmental and non-governmental organizations, who are also involved in assessing the proposed pathways. It is strongly recommended (but not obligatory) that students take the course “Resource competition worldwide: Issues and perspectives” (SDC52806) given in Period 1.

This course explores the main concepts and principles of international environmental law. It looks at how international environmental law has emerged and developed, in particular by emphasizing the role and contribution of international courts and tribunals. The course also deals specifically with the legal regimes that have been shaped in order to preserve the global environment in different fields (climate change, biodiversity, desertification, water, ozone, chemical products, air pollution, genetically modified organisms, nanotechnologies). With the emergence of the concept of sustainable development, international environmental law is now at the crossroads of different regimes. In this context, the course analyzes the relationship between international environmental law and international trade (and/or investment) law as well as the relationship between international environmental law and human rights.

In this inter-disciplinary course, (designed for students of geography, environmental science, ecology, and international development who have an interest in biodiversity and its conservation), students focus on the interactions between biodiversity and human societies. The course adopts a rigorous evidence-based approach. Students first critically examine the human drivers of biodiversity loss and the importance of biodiversity to human society, to understand how underlying perspectives and motivations influence approaches to conservation. They then examine conflicts between human society and conservation and how these potentially can be resolved, reviewing institutions and potential instruments for biodiversity conservation in both Europe and developing countries. 

This course reviews different types of environmental behaviors, the drivers of such behaviors, and how communication strategies can stimulate pro-environmental behavior. Analyzing and evaluating existing campaigns in the field of sustainability and designing their campaigns to change environmental behavior on campus for a real-world client is applied.

Incorporating the human security discourse into sustainable development, this course focuses on four themes representing overarching approaches for developing sustainability solutions, whose interests they represent, and their implications on the "individual" as the referent object of security and sustainable development. Engaging the human security components allows students to understand the implications of sustainable development, or lack thereof, on the people whose development is to be sustained. Through critical interrogation of approaches to the sustainable development, this course explores the benefits and trade-offs implicit in different dimensions of sustainability and their implications. The course builds on the core material of SD1000 and SD1004.

This course provides individual research training for students in the Junior Year Engineering Program through the experience of belonging to a specific laboratory at Tohoku University. Students are assigned to a laboratory with the consent of the faculty member in charge. They participate in various group activities, including seminars, for the purposes of training in research methods and developing teamwork skills. The specific topic studied depends on the instructor in charge of the laboratory to which each student is assigned. The methods of assessment vary with the student's project and laboratory instructor. Students submit an abstract concerning the results of their individual research each semester and present the results near the end of this program.

Topics in this international relations course include: problems arising from environmental degradation; regulatory agreements; the roles of various actors; effectiveness of environmental regimes; the challenges of reaching international agreements for regulation; decision-making processes in the environmental field at the international level; the influence of non-government actors, companies, and advocacy groups on environmental legislation; the relationship between the environment, economy, and sustainable development.