This course explores the changing relationships between human beings and the natural world from early history to the present. We will consider the various ways humans across the globe have interacted with and modified the natural world by using fire, domesticating plants and animals, extracting minerals and energy, designing petro-chemicals, splitting atoms and leaving behind wastes of all sorts. Together we consider the impacts, ranging from population expansion to species extinctions and climate change. We examine how human interactions with the natural world relate to broader cultural processes such as religion, colonialism and capitalism, and why it is important to understand the past, even the deep past, in order to rise to the challenges of the present.

Wildfires, deforestation, air pollution, plastics in the ocean, lead in water, and increasingly destructive natural disasters have all been in the news lately. What are the underlying causes? What can be done? In this course students will examine eight environmental issues. They will become familiar with the current knowledge, debates, human impacts, economic consequences, policies, and potential solutions for each issue. Lectures will introduce each of the disciplines that contribute to the dialogue on these environmental issues, while a final project will allow students to dive deeper into one major environmental issue within the context of each of these disciplines. In addition to lectures, readings, and discussion there is a semester-long group project culminating in a final paper.

This undergraduate capstone course, sponsored by the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department, is a 7-week, .5 cu class designed to give Wharton seniors the chance to connect academic theory with complex real-world issues arising within the context of award-winning social enterprise projects identified by the World Bank's "Ideas for Action Initiative." The course by the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department is jointly sponsored by the World Bank and Wharton's Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research. The aim of the course is to integrate and strengthen students' academic skills by applying them in cross-functional ways to the production of real-world consulting reports for project founders. The course will also require students to grapple with current ethical and legal challenges that business organizations face, such as defining the purpose of a business, determining how to incorporate global standards like the Sustainable Development Goals or other Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards into a business plan, and designing mechanisms to promote ethical behavior and combat such systemic challenges as corruption.

This research-oriented seminar focuses on the ways in which "sustainability" and "sustainable development" are linguistically and culturally translated into the world's languages. We may take the terms for granted, but they have only really been on the global stage since they were widely introduced in the 1987 United Nations report, Our Common Future. Seminar participants will first become acquainted with the cultural and conceptual history of the terms and the UN framework within which sustainability efforts directly or indirectly operate. Having established the significance of cultural and linguistic difference in conceiving and implementing sustainability, participants will collaboratively develop a research methodology in order to begin collecting and analyzing data. We will draw heavily on Penn's diverse language communities and international units. Seminar members will work together and individually to build an increasingly comprehensive website that provides information about the world's languages of sustainability.

The global water and sanitation crisis kills over 4,000 children each day and represents one of the biggest health problems in the world. At the University of Pennsylvania school year 2010-2011 was declared the "Year of Water" in recognition of the many challenges that lie ahead as global increases in population and affluence and the influences of climate change will stress limited water resources. Each year the Stockholm International Water Institute convenes a Conference with experts from around the globe to exchange the latest water research findings and develop new networks. Students will attend the Conference, present research by presentations/posters, document a key issue, interview experts, and meet colleagues with common interests. They will also help other organizations at the Conference.

Over the past five years, humanity has tak en a massive leap into a new Space Era made possible by powerful enabling technologies and private sector entrepreneurs from around the world in collaboration with the public sector What used to be the exclusive domain of two superpowers is now being democratized and made accessible to established organizations and entrepreneurs from both developed and e merging countries. The cost of escaping EarthEarth’s gravity is expected to fall by more than two orders of magnitude by innovation s in reusable rockets and business models.

This course explores the history and archaeology of the last 20,000 years from the development of agriculture to the industrial revolution. Why did people across the world abandon foraging for farming? How and why did cities and states develop? Why did societies succeed or fail? How have humans transformed themselves and the natural world, including the landscape and the climate? We will explore the methods that archaeologists use to consider these questions and analyze evidence for social and economic change from the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe. In addition, students will have a chance to conduct hands-on exercises with artifacts from the Penn Museum during practicums.

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This course will explore the interplay between health and human rights and enable students to critically apply human rights to public health practice. We will explore the development of health as a human right and how public health research and policy can affect human rights. Students will learn about core human rights principles and mechanisms and the international development agenda. The class will examine topics at the intersection of global health and human rights including HIV/AIDS, harm reduction, migration, sexual and reproductive health, and climate change. Class material will primarily focus on public health challenges in the global south; however, we will also discuss health and human rights issues faced by volnerable populations in the United States.

Placemaking is a powerful tool for healthy communities. This course is open to students in nursing, public health, medicine, environmental policy, planning and design for intersectoral professional work. Through the design of place, including housing, schools, healthcare facilities, and the workplace, the class will investigate the impact of Social Determinants of Health and build a Culture of Health. Course work covers design and planning theory that intersects with diseases, sustainability, climate action and interconnectivity. Case studies, seminars, and tours will help students synthesize how to promote health through the design and development process and to make effective communication to enhance health equity.

This course covers fundamentals of heat and mass transfer and applications to practical problems in energy conversion and conservation. Emphasis will be on developing a physical and analytical understanding of conductive, convective, and radiative heat transfer, as well as design of heat exchangers and heat transfer with phase change. Topics covered will include: types of heat transfer processes, their relative importance, and the interactions between them, solutions of steady state and transient state conduction, emission and absorption of radiation by real surfaces and radiative transfer between surfaces, heat transfer by forced and natural convection owing to flow around bodies and through ducts, analytical solutions for some sample cases and applications of correlations for engineering problems. Students will develop an ability to apply governing principles and physical intuition to solve problems.

This seminar will explore the history of buildings as mechanisms of climate management, and the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that pertain. In particular, we will examine how visual and mediatic interventions became a crucial aspect of architectural engagement with climate systems, and how, simultaneously, architectural image-making techniques became an important interdisciplinary site for understanding the cultural effects of scientific knowledge.

Situated at the intersection of climate change and racial equity, housing insecurity demands urgent attention. The United Nations predicts that the world population will exceed 11 billion people by the year 2100, increasing demand for food, water, and other essential resources, especially housing. As the frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters (e.g. floods, storms, wildfires, and heatwaves) continues to rise, the provision of safe and resilient housing remains a critical need. In the United States, nearly one-third of all homes are highly vulnerable to climate disasters. At the same time, black, indigenous, and other households of color shoulder disproportionate impacts of climate change while facing systemic disparities in disaster relief assistance. As demonstrated most recently by the COVID-19 pandemic, the quality of people’s homes and communities is a key contributor to racial health disparities. This seminar will examine historical and present-day frameworks of racial discrimination within housing and urban design, including redlining, infrastructural neglect, flood vulnerability, and urban heat and pollution. We will consider the impending threat of climate change to housing security in the United States and around the world. Engaging leading scholars and practitioners, the course will highlight actionable strategies that prioritize environmental justice and promote housing equity. Through readings, documentaries, and topically themed lectures, we will first explore the historical frameworks that precipitated housing inequities. Using Philadelphia as a model, students will prepare a timeline of historical events that are critical in understanding the sociocultural, economic, legal, and physical contexts of housing policy and design in the United States. Finally, students will research and analyze global case studies, producing graphic visualizations as a form of architectural storytelling.

Reading and discussion course on selected topics in Transregional History

This intensive research seminar invites students to explore the history of farmworkers in the United States during the twentieth century. Research will primarily but not necessarily exclusively focus on the west coast, a region in which many archival sources have been digitized. Students may explore a wide variety of topics, including but not limited to: farmworker unions; the relationship between farmworker mobilizations and other movements in the US and abroad; the experiences of workers from the Philippines and Latin America and the role of US imperial and immigration policies in the lives of farmworkers; farmworkers' confrontations with and participation in systems of racism; the Great Depression in rural communities; the history of gender and family in farmworker communities; the history of environment and health; struggles over citizenship and social rights; counter-mobilizations of growers and the right; religion in farmworker communities; legislative and legal strategies to obtain rights denied agricultural workers in federal law; artistic, musical, and cultural production; or the relationship between consumers and the workers who produced their food.

As our planet's climate changes, it is imperative to understand the basic structures of the earth system and our connections to these, past, present, and future. The goal of this course is to help students develop an integrated understanding of climate change, linking the fundamental science - from the microscopic to the global scale - to human actions and possible futures. This team-taught course brings together approaches from environmental science, social sciences, history, and policy. Beyond providing basic climate and environmental literacy, we will also explore current and projected impacts of change, including changes to human life and biodiversity as well as other physical and biological systems. The complexity and significance of planetary change demands new ways of thinking and new approaches that transcend traditional boundaries; for that reason the course will be co-taught by instructors from the natural sciences (Joseph Francisco), social science and humanities (Kathleen Morrison), and policy (Melissa Brown Goodall). We will use the foundation provided by the two first parts of the course to address potential responses and solutions to the current crisis. The course will be divided into three units: 1. Science: what are the chemical and physical drivers of our changing climate, and what are the biological, health and environmental implications so far. 2. Impacts: how human activity has affected environments and climate so far and how climate change is currently impacting society, nature, agriculture, health, cities, and the most vulnerable communities. 3. Solutions: the roles of policy, business, agriculture, planning, and personal choices. The course is open to undergraduate students of all disciplines. While the reading and weekly assignments will be specific to the module, students may define a capstone project that reflects their academic interests.

Introduction to the basic principles of the hydrologic cycle and water budgets, precipitation and infiltration, evaporation and transpiration, stream flow, hydrograph analysis (floods), subsurface and groundwater flow, well hydraulics, water quality, and frequency analysis.

This seminar will explore a collection of ideas influencing energy policy development in the U.S. and around the world. Our platform for this exploration will be seven recent books to be discussed during the semester. These books each contribute important insights to seven ideas that influence energy policy: Narrative, Transition, Measurement, Systems, Subsidiarity, Disruption, Attachmen

What does it mean to imagine environmental justice? Our course explores a range of narrative forms from distinct global contexts, to ask what environmental justice looks like in a world where the effects of colonialism and climate change are unevenly distributed across populations. Sustained engagement with Indigenous North American, African American, Palestinian, and South African imaginary traditions will highlight diverse ways of relating to land, water and nonhuman animals challenge that challenge capitalist and colonial logics of extraction. This course asks students to comparatively and critically reflect on literary, filmic, and nonfictional narratives that engage in different ways with the question of justice. Course materials highlight not only instances of spectacular environmental catastrophe but also more subtle effects on bodies and landscapes, attending to the complex ways that environmental crisis intersects with race, gender and sexuality. The class will enable participants to translate these ideas into practice by producing public-facing content through creative modes of enquiry. Ultimately, we will strive to understand how various forms of artistic and creative expression might enable us to imagine more equitable futures.

This course explores Impact Investing, a discipline that seeks to generate social benefits as well as financial returns. From tiny beginnings, the Impact Investment space has expanded and now commands significant attention from policymakers, wealthy and public-spirited individuals, academia and, not least, the world's largest asset managers and philanthropic foundations. Evangelists believe it may be the key to freeing the world from poverty. Skeptics think it will remain confined to the boutique. Regardless, Impact Investing is becoming a distinct career specialization for finance professionals despite the diverse skillset each must have and the uncertainty of the new field's growth. In addition to prerequisites, FNCE 2050 is recommended but not required.