Environmental Studies

This course examines conflictual sustainability problems. It considers how to listen across significant differences of life experience and professional training and how to build network supports, identify stakeholders, develop resources and policies for implementation and evaluation to create or co-create a sustainability action plans for an applied field problem. 

The focus of the course is on the relations between terrestrial ecosystems and global climate systems. Seen in a historical and present perspective as well as on a temporal and spatial scale, the interactions between climate and ecosystem are put in perspective of the ongoing and future climate change. Further, the course explains how models and data bases are used to develop future climate scenarios and reconstruction of previous climate conditions, as well as the anthropogenic role in the present changes in climate.

This course introduces the principles of terrestrial ecology. Major topics include diversity and distributions of terrestrial environments, soils and nutrient cycling, animal-plant interactions (pollination, seed dispersal, herbivory), disturbance ecology and succession, energy flow and food webs, population biology, and fragmentation. The course has a strong quantitative focus. The course also covers ecological processes in rural (agricultural) and urban terrestrial environments.

This course explores the intricate relationship between climate dynamics, economic systems, and sustainable policies that can be put in place (Global Perspectives, 2030 Agenda, Climate Agreements, Paris Agreement, EU Green Deal) to innovation and behavioral interventions. It provides an understanding of the climate and sustainability debate, and the economic concepts that form the basis for analyzing climate-related issues and actionable policies. It also develops the ability to analyze, interpret, and possibly contribute to the ongoing discourse on climate change.

This course discusses how social science is concerned with issues of environmental justice. It provides an opportunity to carry out a short survey through interviews and/or observations with actors involved in the organization of the Olympic Games in Paris and the environmental contestations to which this event gives rise. The course highlights inequalities of race, gender, and class, and the role of the state, the market, and certain professional groups in the construction of environmental problems. At the same time, the survey conducted provides a fresh perspective on the event.

This course provides a sociological perspective on economic, social, and political processes, focusing especially on global social change and sustainable development. Students acquire the knowledge required to understand and critically examine the discussions pursued about the global social change that marks modernity, focusing especially on the post-war period. The course includes 4 modules: Classical and Modern Social Analysis; Contemporary Sociological Perspectives on Global Development; Global Sustainability and Environmental Sociology; and Social Sciences Methods.

The goal of this course is to enable students to apply the main instruments of impact assessment and mitigation in practical planning situations based on fundamental knowledge provided in the bachelor's degree program; to gain expertise about the contents and planning processes of instruments such as the German Impact Mitigation Regulation, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), EU Habitat Regulations Assessment (HRA) and Protected Species Assessment, as well as U.S.-American Wetland Mitigation and Endangered Species Mitigation; to recognize environmental and social needs and plan accordingly, and to identify interfaces with natural and social sciences; to apply planning instruments both in domestic as well international arenas; to judge the different instruments in their effectiveness and know how to generate appropriate research when needed and to identify and formulate research approaches for the further development of planning instruments, and; to identify and analyze aspects of gender mainstreaming in planning processes.

The course introduces students to different types and sources of pollution and their distribution and control methods, and students explore risk assessment strategies and the source-pathway-receptor framework to assess their risks to human and environmental health.

This interdisciplinary course provides students with the opportunity to address complex problems identified by industry, community, and government organizations, and gain valuable experience in working across disciplinary boundaries. In collaboration with a
major industry partner and an academic lead, students integrate their academic skills and knowledge by working in teams with students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. This experience allows students to research, analyze and present solutions to a real-world problem, and to build on their interpersonal and transferable skills by engaging with and learning from industry experts and presenting their ideas and solutions to the industry partner.

Ecology explores how organisms interact with each other and their environment at the molecular, individual, population, community, ecosystem, and global levels.  This introductory course covers basic ecological concepts and their applications in conservation, agriculture, habitat/ecosystem management, and climate change mitigation. Led by multiple professors with their extensive expertise in ecology, the course instructs on why ecology is the "user manual of the Earth" (Ho 2018) and how ecological processes play their role in maintaining biodiversity richness, ecosystem functions, and the overall health of our planet.