Environmental Studies

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made. The objective of EIA is to ensure that decision-makers consider environmental impacts before deciding whether to proceed with new projects. This course introduces the concept of EIA, its historical evolution, and the terminologies that are used worldwide. Topics include the organizational aspects of EIA, the EIA framework and the procedural methods to conduct an EIA, with special emphasis on water and water related issues. 

This course provides a study of basic soil mechanics and investigates geotechnical engineering principles. It examines how to make simplifications to complex soil conditions, how to establish strength/deformation characteristics of the soil, and how to apply fundamental geo-mechanics knowledge to solve problems involving the stability of an earth mass.

This course explores the relationship between the natural world and United States culture, considering specifically the visual expression of that relationship: How have Americans imagined “nature” and represented it? How have concepts of land and landscape shaped perceptions about social order, identity, and sustainability? The course provides both a historical framework for thinking about these questions as well as a contemporary perspective, particularly in the context of a potential new era known as the “Anthropocene.” 

This course explores the scientific basis for understanding energy management, both at global and local scales. It discusses the energy resources available worldwide, how we consume energy today, and the pros, cons, and limitations of each form of energy production. This course examines the criteria that should drive energy management and energy transition at a global scale, as well as the current geopolitical and economic scenarios that impact this process.

With a growing number of unsustainable environmental, economic, and social trends, how can different actors work for sustainable alternatives? How can we develop capacities, strategies and tactics that achieve lasting and real changes in the local and global world? To achieve a more vibrant and participatory sustainable development there is a need for great changes, both on the systemic and individual level. These changes can take the form of fast-moving revolutions, but can also be more reformist initiatives as social entrepreneurship in businesses or taking part in local politics. In the course different actors and their strategies for change, globally and locally, are critiqued and analyzed through discussions with guest lecturers and in workshops with fellow students. In the last part of the course students work on a concrete change project, which builds on the discussions and insights gained during the first part of the course.

Blue Science is a module that allows students to experience interactive university teaching and learning by dealing with their social and ecological responsibility in concrete and active ways. It came up as an transdisciplinary extension of the seminar Blue Engineering, which has been offered for over 10 years, promoting socially and ecologically responsible engineering through a variety of alternative teaching methods. Blue Science is open for students of all areas and backgrounds with an interest in technology. Science and its relation to technology, individuals, nature and society is reflected, analyzed and questioned in interdisciplinary discussions facilitated through diverse methods. Students are encouraged to think and learn independently and creatively, and therefore teacher-centered instruction does not occur in this module. Students acquire the competence to unveil the complex interdependency of their social, political, ecological and economic surroundings. This includes the consideration of different values, interests and needs within a global perspective as well as within one class(room). The course design encourages democratic decision-making not only to solve but also to define problems within the course itself and moreover outside of the classroom. By developing and carrying out their own teaching units, students are actively involved in the teaching process and co-create the course. This allows students to bring in their own areas of interest and to share their findings and points of view with others, creating learning material that may be used in future editions of the module.

This course operates from the premise that there is nothing natural about gender differences. It explores the theoretical underpinnings of this premise and its implications for how scholars, students, and practitioners can think about sustainable development centered around commoning and care. This overview course has a distinct approach to understanding how gender and ecological conditions are interrelated. Grounded in social theory, it is inherently critical of standard development and gender narratives and instead seeks explanatory power within historical and structural conditions and explores different approaches to this. The course readings are selected as key contributions to broad debates on gender, environment, and development and are rooted in disciplinary fields such as critical geography, political economy, feminist political ecology, and critical social theory. Structured around core themes including decoloniality, critiques of capitalism, globalization, performativity, care, and commoning, the course engages in primary readings of feminist and other critical scholars who have been at the forefront of conceptualizing gender and human/environment relations in different ways. It discusses how gender and ecological conditions are interrelated; the dynamics behind the widespread “dual oppression" of particular humans and the environment as well as the policy responses designed to redress these; critical perspectives on buzzwords like “sustainability,” "sustainable development,” and "gender” that circulate in policy and project documents, global “development goals,” and social movements; and a range of conceptual and analytical tools to both explain today’s realities and instigate change toward new future trajectories. The course offers students of environment and development, geography, global development, environmental science, food science, natural resources governance, or similar fields the opportunity to learn how to understand and analyze the relations between gender, environment, and sustainable development, and to engage in debates about different approaches to these issues. It combines close reading and discussion of texts with case studies, documentaries, and interactions with activists and social movements. It provides an opportunity to build skills to formulate critical questions and clear methodologies around the entanglements between issues of gender and the environment and the challenges these pose to sustainable development to understand and engage in diverse gender and environment conflicts and debates across diverse topics, scales, and contexts.

The course provides an introduction to environmental journalism addressing the key themes of poverty and development, climate, water, energy, biodiversity, consumerism, garbage, etc. Topics include ecology, environment and sustainability concepts, and green economy. 

This course emphasizes hands-on laboratory experience and teaches students research background, relevant theories, and basic laboratory techniques relevant to their field of study. Students formulate a research plan, implement it by conducting experiment-based research, and convey the results in scholarly presentations. Students submit a written research report at the end of the course.

The Individual Research Training Senior (IRT Senior) Course is an advanced course of the Individual Research Training B (IRT B) course in the Tohoku University Junior Year Program in English (JYPE) in the spring semester. Though short-term international exchange students are not degree candidates at Tohoku University, a similar experience is offered by special arrangement. Students are required to submit: an abstract concerning the results of their IRT Senior project, a paper (A4, 20-30 pages) on their research at the end of the exchange term, and an oral presentation on the results of their IRT Senior project near the end of the　term.