Fossil fuel powered the making--now the unmaking--of the modern world. As the first fossil fuel state, Pennsylvania led the United States toward an energy-intensive economy, a technological pathway with planetary consequences. The purpose of this seminar is to perform a historical accounting--and an ethical reckoning--of coal, oil, and natural gas. Specifically, students will investigate the histories and legacies of fossil fuel in connection to three entities: the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania. Under instructor guidance, students will do original research, some of it online, much the rest of it in archives, on and off campus, in and around Philadelphia. Philly-based research may also involve fieldwork. While based in historical sources and methods, this course intersects with business, finance, policy, environmental science, environmental engineering, urban and regional planning, public health, and social justice. Student projects may take multiple forms, individual and collaborative, from traditional papers to data visualizations prepared with assistance from the Price Lab for Digital Humanities. Through their research, students will contribute to a multi-year project that will ultimately be made available to the public.

This course is for students who care about "the fate of the earth," and who want to try their hand at formulating relevant publication-quality fact and opinion pieces. Those students include: STEM students who are writing-curious; journalism students interested in sci-tech writing; and prose writers who care about using facts to tell urgently important stories. We'll tackle urgent topics that regularly command today's headlines, such as: global warming (should we risk geoengineering the climate?); "the 6th Extinction" (should we try to save every endangered species?); and preventing the next pandemic (should researchers be allowed to augment non-virulent viruses to learn how to defeat them should they mutate?). Inaction on issues that threaten life in the world your generation is now inheriting may be due, partly, to the difficulty of formulating coherent opinions about corrective courses of action. One way to avoid the "deer-in-headlights" non-response is to learn enough facts to formulate compelling, persuasive opinions. This course gives you the chance to do precisely that - while improving your writing skills. You will also work on a semester-long reporting project of profiling a scientist, doctor, or researcher who is involved in sci/tech/fate-of-the-earth issues. This course fulfills attributes in Science, Technology, and Society. For students in the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, this course meets the Humanities and Public Engagement requirements.

This innovative course provides a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness between planetary health and oral health. Engaging with global policies, stakeholder roles, conflict resolution, implementation strategies, and progress measurement, it equips learners to foster holistic health perspectives. Emphasizing leadership in the health sector, the course promotes advocacy and policy-making geared towards sustainable health outcomes at multiple levels.

We will exam various aspects of photosynthesis, water relations and nutrient acquisition in the context of the evolutionary progression of higher plants. With each subject, we will consider, measure, and in some cases model whole-plant physiology while examining sub-cellular-level controls and ecosystem-to-global-level consequences. This course is designed to give molecular biologists through earth-system scientists the tools to measure and understand whole-plant physiological responses to molecular manipulation and environmental variability. All students will learn to appreciate the context of their work on both micro and macro scales.

The share of executives, board members, and investment managers who consider climate risk, racial justice and other ESG issues as well as stakeholder’s opinions of the firm to be material to their business decisions has risen dramatically. If this business case for engagement with stakeholders on ESG issues can be demonstrated to mainstream investors, pools of capital can be mobilized to harness grand societal challenges. However, executives, board members, and investment managers are actually growing less confident in the ESG data available to guide capital allocations and strategic decisions. ESG scores have been demonstrated to be unreliable, incomplete and biased and often lean on outdated and/or incomplete information obtained through voluntary unaudited disclosure. This course provides students the latest tools to assess and map stakeholder opinions as well as integrate them into financial valuation. It also offers behavioral skills critical for stakeholder engagement including trust building, strategic communications and shaping organizational culture. In short, it prepares students to engage in Corporate Diplomacy (i.e., to influence external stakeholders’ opinions of the acceptability of a company’s operations at a moment in time and to convince internal stakeholders to adapt their behaviors, systems and outputs` when necessary to support an organizational mission).

Cities have been centres of aspiration for much of human history. They have provided a limited yet critical locus for social mobility, both in political and economic terms. As large agglomerations of political and economic power, urban residents have also consumed growing proportions of the earths mineral, food and water resources from the national (and international) body. The contradictory aspects of urban aspiration frame this course. Drawing on the frameworks of political ecology, in this course we think through the cities of the global south to understand how cities are made. To do this, we will first focus on the construction on the liberal city and how it has been occupied, both formally and informally, by urban subjects in most of the world. Next, we will learn about projects through which natural resources have been directed to and through the city. Finally we will conclude with a particular attention to how urban resources are claimed by marginalized migrants, and the particular sorts of governance institutions these practices engender.

This class looks at one of the most important issues facing the world today: China’s climate policy and energy transition, and its impact on global climate change. The course aims to expose students to the driving forces behind China’s position and policy related to climate change, with a strong emphasis on political economy. The course will also examine barriers and challenges related to meeting China’s ambitious climate commitments. An important part of the course will be guest speakers representing the U.S. and Chinese government officials; multilateral institution officials; researchers; journalists; and civil society.

The course serves as an introduction to the study of population and demography, including issues pertaining to fertility, mortality, migration, and family formation and structure. Within these broad areas we consider the social, economic, and political implications of current trends, including: population explosion, baby bust, the impact of international migration on receiving societies, population aging, racial classification, growing diversity in household composition and family structure, population and environmental degradation, and the link between population and development/poverty.

As climate change becomes an increasing threat, nations and organizations across the globe are setting ambitious net zero and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, but how is this accomplished? Through case studies and assessments this class will investigate the leading techniques and practices to reduce carbon emissions and capture and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Case studies will include examples from agriculture and food; living shorelines, wetlands, and coastal restoration; biodiversity; energy; transportation; land use, and the social aspect (empowering women and girls); bioremediation, and anaerobic digesters vs composting. Relevant climate data will be reviewed, as well as approaches to business practices, economic considerations and legislation that can accelerate addressing climate impacts to our environment.

What is sustainability? Can any fundamental concepts, principles or framework be constructed that adequately describes the search for sustainability? Is there a meaningful methodology? Sustainability science is a trans-disciplinary approach in which the quantitative and qualitative, natural and social,and theory and practice are reconciled and creatively combined. The objective of this course is to provide an in-depth analysis of the foundational concepts, principles, processes and practices of sustainability science. The course will explore three foundational laws governing sustainability:the law of limits to growth, the second law of thermodynamics, and the law of self-organization. Students will examine how these laws operate in biological, ecological, and physical systems, and then apply them to social, economic and political systems.

The course consists of a series of workshops that introduce students to a diverse range of practices. The course goal is to gain an understanding of the profession by using the project process as a framework. The course comprises a survey of the architectural profession - its licensing and legal requirements; its evolving types of practice, fees and compensation; its adherence to the constraints of codes and regulatory agencies, client desires and budgets; and its place among competing and allied professions and financial interests. The workshops are a critical forum for discussion to understand the forces which at times both impede and encourage innovation and leadership. Students learn how architects develop the skills necessary to effectively communicate to clients, colleagues, and user groups. Trends such as globalization, ethics, entrepreneurship, sustainability issues and technology shifts are analyzed in their capacity to affect the practice of an architect.

A detailed, comprehensive investigation of selected environmental problems. This is the first course taken by students entering the Master of Environmental Studies Program.

This course will explore the role of public spaces - streets, boulevards, parks and squares - in cities and their social uses. With the University of Pennsylvania campus and the City of Philadelphia serving as our laboratory, we will critically examine the evolution of the movement of corridors, open space and buildings of the urban landscape and their changing uses. Following the flaneur tradition of Baudelaire and Benjamin, we will walk the city to experience and understand the myriad environments and neighborhoods that comprise it.

This broadly interdisciplinary course is designed for Graduate and Undergraduate Fellows in the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) who hail from departments across Arts and Sciences as well as other schools at the university. The course is also open to others with permission of the instructors. Work in environmental humanities by necessity spans academic disciplines. By design, it can also address and engage publics beyond traditional academic settings. This seminar, with limited enrollment, explores best practices in public environmental humanities. Students receive close mentoring to develop and execute cross-disciplinary, public engagement projects on the environment. In spring 2018, participants have the opportunity to participate in PPEH's public engagement projects on urban waters and environmental data. These ongoing projects document the variety of uses that Philadelphians make of federal climateand environmental data, in and beyond city government; they also shine light onclimate and environmental challenges our city faces and the kinds of data we need to address them. Working with five community partners across Philadelphia, including the City's Office of Sustainability, students in this course will develop data use stories and surface the specific environmental questions neighborhoods have and the kinds of data they find useful. The course hosts guest speakers and research partners from related public engagement projects across the planet; community, neighborhood, open data, and open science advocates; and project partners in government in the City of Philadelphia and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

By necessity, work in environmental humanities spans academic disciplines. By design, it can also address and engage publics beyond traditional academic settings. This seminar explores best practices in public environmental humanities. Students receive close mentoring and build collaborative community to develop and execute cross-disciplinary, public engagement projects on the environment. This spring, this broadly interdisciplinary course is designed in conjunction with the ongoing environmental humanities project, An Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene. In the framework of our seminar, students will have opportunities to work with tne project’s curators and educators as well as Toolmakers on project-based assignments that also engage wider publics around issues of climate and environmental justice. This lab-style seminar is suitable for advanced undergraduates (with permission) and fulfills the “Capstone” requirement for the Minor in Environmental Humanities. It is also open to graduate students in departments across Arts and Sciences as well as other schools at the university.

This course explores the economics and politics of public policy to provide an analytic framework for considering why, how, and with what success/failure government intervenes in a variety of policy areas. Particular attention will be paid to important policy issues relating to taxation, social security, low-income assistance, health insurance, education (both K-12 and higher ed), the environment, and government deficits. The costs and benefits of alternative policies will be explored along with the distribution of responsibilities between the federal, state and local governments. While the course will focus primarily on U.S. policies, the topics covered (e.g. tax reform, deficits versus austerity, etc.) are currently at the center of the policy debate in many other industrialized countries as well.

Climate change has been called the most pressing public health crisis of the 21st century. This course will tackle the intersectional issues that climate change requires us to consider for public health and the design of cities. As such, the course will be offered jointly between the MPH program and the School of Design. The overall structure of the course will be a set of community-based design projects that look to raise climate change risk awareness across disciplines and to identify strategies (policies, programs, projects) to ameliorate or adapt to those risks with health outcomes used as the benchmark for success. In this way, the course touches on both Climate Action and Societal Resilience. The geographic focus of the course will be the Urban environment, with a strong focus on Philadelphia. The course will be purposefully interdisciplinary, recognizing that initial group projects must include developing a shared vocabulary between the different students. Key to our success is a more holistic integration of climate change thinking into professional student training and a common ground on which to collaborate.

This course develops the background in basic physics required to understand the behavior of electrons in atoms, molecules and solids. Beginning with experiments and ideas that led to the foundation and postulates of Quantum Mechanics, the behavior of an electron in simple potential wells is treated. The electron in a harmonic oscillator well and the Coulomb potential of a hydrogen atom are treated next. Pauli's exclusion principle and generalization to multi-particle systems are introduced. The Fermi energy, density of states and free electron band structure will be introduced. Many state-of-the-art materials analysis techniques will also be demonstrated throughout the course.

Real Estate is changing dramatically for the first time in perhaps one hundred years. This class will examine how technology is changing in many facets (all) of the industry.This course will address how technology has already changed the demand for real estate, how it will likely change in the future the way real estate is used, designed, developed, constructed, managed, leased, maintained and financed. Among many questions to be considered: Can you crowd fund real estate development? Will the office business become a part of hospitality? Can we build new buildings like we assemble legos? How will autonomous vehicles affect the demand for space and property values? What is the future of new data analytics services? This is a team taught mini, half-credit course that will bring together a recognized industry leader and Wharton faculty. Includes a broad set of guest lecturers (Start-up entrepreneurs, incumbents, non RE technology specialists, etc). We believe there is no one single approach to gain insight into disruptions and change under uncertainty so we will propose a mix of approaches including, in-depth case-studies, interactions with guest lecturers who handle those issues daily, learning from economic history and other industries, and drawing from core economic concepts.

Over the course of six Sunday field trips, we will travel from the barrier islands along the Atlantic Ocean in southern New Jersey to the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, visiting representative sites of the diverse landscapes in the region along the way. At each site we will study and consider interactions between geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and disturbance. Students will summarize field trip data in a weekly site report. Evening class meetings will provide the opportunity to review field trips and reports and preview upcoming trips. Six all-day Sunday field trips are required.