Course Offerings by term

Have you ever been asked where you stand on 'the climate issue'? Do you believe that humanity stands at the brink of extinction? Do you think that climate change is a concern, but that technology will see humanity through? This course will allow you to construct an educated point of view.
We will start by understanding what drives weather events and what drives climate and climate change. We will then move on to the environmental and societal dependencies on specific climate factors (precipitation,seasonality, predictability, etc.) and we will identify the impacts that certain climatic changes can have on human society and the environment. In carrying out our investigation of the climate system and its impacts we will rely on the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We will study the emerging results from the reports focusing on observations, impacts, mitigations, and adaptation strategies suggested by the worldwide community of climate scientists contributing to the IPCC. Students are expected to develop a fact-based physics-based opinion of humanities present-day climate change predicament.

The course is taught as a directed study by the chair of the CSMES department or by a faculty member appointed by the chair. The course requires students approaching completion of their Environmental Studies Major course sequence to assemble all their undergraduate academic achievements into a coherent body of work, linked by overarching themes and goals, leading to a proposal for a senior project