Environmental Courses for Spring '07

99-231Environment and Early Warnings

Mondays 6:30 – 8:30. Four additional lectures part of University lectures, on February 5, February 12, March 5; April 12, all at 4:30* (Part of ULS and Environmental Distinguished lectures): Professors Lou Guillette*; Shanna Swan; Pete Myers*; Tyrone Hayes*) and a screening of the film Inconvenient Truth

Instructor: Indira Nair

This course addresses the questions: How can we use emerging scientific information on health hazards to direct, monitor and control our technological behavior as a society? How do uncertainty, precaution and care figure in our thinking as we balance economic interests and technological progress with the long-term sustainability of life on earth?

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring set the stage for the environmental movement in the United States. The book warned us of emerging signs of the ecosystem impacts of pesticides. But our society has not come to a point where we know how to take emerging observations and possible long-term impacts and integrate them to our societal decision making. Recent emerging calamities give us examples: Global warming, endocrine disruption and deforestation among them. The European Community has decided to use the “precautionary principle” as a guiding paradigm for environmental regulation, rather than the more traditional cost-benefit analysis.

Using an interdisciplinary case-based approach, this course will to examining cases in which technological advances and related tangible and short-term economic and other immediate results have overshadowed long-term understanding and precautionary action to prevent extensive harm. Students will study in detail the historic cases of “Late lessons from early warnings”, specifically the case of pesticides, lead, and climate change and develop a systemic approach to thinking about our interaction with the environment. From these and readings on environmental ethics, policies and policy frameworks such as the precautionary principle, and risk perception and decision making, they will build frameworks for precautionary action in the case of endocrine disruptors and of low-frequency magnetic fields.

The course will have a seminar-based approach, with our campus experts giving some of the lectures, followed by a discussion session by the instructor. Similarly, four University lectures in the Environmental Distinguished Lecture series next semester are on diverse facets of the emerging evidence on endocrine disruption. These and the film, “Inconvenient Truth” will also form a part of the course with follow-up discussions in class.

99-232 Urban Farming and the Environment

Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:20 PM: DH 2122

Also attendance at four University lectures, 4:30 PM on Thursday, Jan 18; Tuesdays Feb 13, April 24 in Rangos 1 and 2

Instructor: Larry Patrick

A second agricultural revolution is now taking place globally, this time in the city. Pittsburgh alone has three working farms and Giant Eagle’s Center Ave. store will soon be the nation’s first supermarket with a living, vegetable producing rooftop. Several local elementary schools already teach gardening as part of the open curriculum. Not far away, Columbia University’s School of Public Health is designing a 30 story “vertical farm” to fit smartly and ecologically into the New York City skyline. Worldwide, 75 percent of all commercial vegetables are today grown from urban patios, rooftops, and inner courtyards.

Residents of several major U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh, are now growing substantial quantities of food for local, commercial sale and profit. This course explores the rise of urban farming world wide and traces its arrival to the Burgh. Early (cold weather) course emphasis is placed on 1) crises inherent in conventional systems of food production, and on 2) changing theories of urban land use, including agricultural land use, as expressed through models of sustainable urban design. Among other things, these models stress the benefits of local economy, socioeconomic empowerment of the masses via neighborhood based initiatives, the role of women in achieving this empowerment, and new visions of urban architecture. As the course unfolds into warmer months field trips will be taken to nearby urban farms, to sites of future rooftop gardening and to local public schools where the joys of growing food are now part of the teaching curriculum. Course participants will be required to attend four public lectures sponsored by CMU and the Pittsburgh Urban Farming Initiative, each given by nationally recognized expert on aspects of urban farming. Substantial out-of-class team projects will be undertaken throughout the duration of this course.

ENVIRONMENTAL COURSES FOR SPRING 2007 - registration begins Nov 14
To check the scheduling of any of these courses visit:
https://acis.as.cmu.edu/gale2/open/Schedule/SOCServlet

CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (CIT)

Civil and Environmental Engineering

12-100 Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering 12-612 Pittsburgh Brownfields: Where the Past and Future Meet Civil and Environmental Engineering (Mini 4) 12-610 Special Topics: Project Management 12-657 Water Resources Engineering 12-714 Life Cycle Assessment 12-715 Sustainability Case Studies 12-725 Fate and Transport of Organic Contaminants in Aquatic System

Engineering and Public Policy

19616 Case Studies in Sustainability

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS (CFA)

Architecture

48-405 Architecture Design Studio: Systems Integration 48-596 LEED Buildings and Green Design 48-576 Mapping Urbanism 48-731 Sustainable Design Synthesis

Art	60-202 Concept Studio: EcoArt 60-437 Advanced SIS: Environmental Sculpture

Design

51314 - Solar Decathlon 51274 - Design & Social Change

HEINZ SCHOOL

Heinz

90-713: Policy and Politics an International Perspective 90-749: Global Economy: A User’s Guide 90-752: The Rise of East Asian Economies 90-763: Human Rights Policy 90-795: Technology & Policy for Disaster and Humanitarian Response 90-856: International Development

HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (H&SS)

Economics

73-358 Economics of the Environment and Natural Resources

History

79-211 Disaster! Fires, Plagues, Hurricanes and Floods in American History 79-243 History of Urban American Life 79-239 Religions of the World’s Peoples 79-208 From Guantanamo to Baghdad and Back Again: Theory and Practice in History/Policy 79-258 Introduction to African History: 18th Century to Neo-Colonialism 79-274 War and Society in Revolutionary Europe 79-276 North of the Border: Mexican Immigration Past and Present 79-279 Modern China 79- 281 Russian History: From Communism to Capitalism 79-362 Law and Disorder in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800 79-396 Music and Society in 19th/20th Century Europe and the U.S. 79-398 Environmental History and Politics Since Silent Spring 79-418 Literary Culture of 19th Century Russia 79-419 Literary Culture of 20th Century Russia

H&SS Interdisciplinary (Information Systems)

67- 326 Global Project Management ( 3 units)

MELLON COLLEGE OF SCIENCE (MCS)

Chemistry	09-510 Introduction to Green Chemistry 09-620: Global Atmospheric Chemistry
Biological Sciences	03-210 Special Topics: Biotechnology Impacting Our Selves, Sphere, and Society : BIOS 3 (Mini B3)

CMU-WIDE STUDIES

Carnegie Mellon Studies

99- 231 Environment and Early Warnings 99- 232 Urban Farming 99-521 Environmental Justice – (3 units) (Weekend immersion course- weekend of March 29 evening-Match 31)