This CWiC course will offer a guided introduction to the one of the most resilient genres of the human imagination: dystopian and apocalyptic fiction. Like a group of survivors huddled around a campfire, we will turn to literature and cinema to debate some of the big questions about the future of science, technology, religion, and capitalism. This course is designed as a Critical Speaking Seminar, and the majority of class assignments will be devoted to oral presentations: including a Parliamentary-style debate and a video essay. We will begin by reading some of the early, influential works in the dystopian genre by authors like Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley. Next, we will explore the paranoid, schizophrenic world of Cold-War-era dystopias by J.G Ballard, Philip K. Dick and Octavia Butler. We will conclude by reading contemporary climate fiction by the likes of Margaret Atwood and Kim Stanley Robinson. Alongside the literary material, we will also track the changing nature of dystopian cinema— from classics like Metropolis (1927) and La Jetée (1962) to the latest Zombie film. By the end of course, students will have a firm grasp of the history of the genre and will be able to draw on this knowledge to effectively debate issues related to privacy, big business, animal rights, climate change, migration etc.

In 1492 Europeans began to colonize the Americas. Many colonizers sought to dispossess Indigenous people of their labor, land, and, sometimes, their lives, and often tried to impose their religion and cultural practices. Nonetheless, throughout Latin America Indigenous communities not only survived but adapted in creative, vigorous ways to the new social and ecological circumstances. In this course we will look at the diverse ways that Indigenous individuals and collectives avoided or adapted to colonial rule in Latin America between 1492 and 1800. We will particularly focus on Arawakan, Carib, Tupinamba, Nahua, and Andean histories. Readings will include both primary and secondary sources.

Traditional building materials are environmentally-expensive to extract, process, transport or recycle, their damage is non-trivial to repair, and have limited ability to respond to changes in their immediate surroundings. Biological materials like cork, coral, silk, skin, shell, or bone outperform man-made materials in that they can be grown where needed, self-repair when damaged, and respond to changes in their surroundings. Their inclusion in architectural practice could have great benefits in wellbeing and the environment defining new tools and strategies towards the future of sustainable construction. Crucial projects describing future biomaterial architectures are emerging in the field. In this seminar, students will review their potential through lectures followed by case studies and propose future developments through a guided research project with special attention to functional, industrial, environmental, and aesthetic dimensions. The course is structured to foster fundamental scientific literacy, cross-disciplinary thinking, creativity, and innovation in biomaterials in design. It also partners with BioDesignChallenge to provide opportunities of project growth and mentorship after the semester ends.

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This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to social policy and practice perspectives from outside the U.S. and especially from communities in the Global South. The course will familiarize them with global professions and help prepare them for overseas/cross-cultural practice. Through the course students will identify numerous strategies and skills professionals have used to collaboratively build interventions within human rights, social policy, social welfare, education, healthcare and sustainable development arenas.

Environmentalist Paul Hawken challenged a class of 2009 college graduates that they would have to "figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating." That theme is at the heart of this course. Our quality of life in the near future hinges on the development and implementation of sustainable solutions to the enormously complex environmental and social problems embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals -- particularly around food, water, energy, and waste. This course is designed to foster the thinking, and the collaborative spirit, that is needed to address those enormous problems. It involves focusing on a critical global sustainability problem with vast social, cultural, and environmental dimensions -- in this case, the need to balance global food, water, and energy needs in a manner that allows the world to feed 9.6 billion citizens by 2050 while preserving the environment for future generations. It also involves collaboration and the exchange of ideas between multi-disciplinary leaders and students from multiple countries, and perspectives on how to manage diverse views and sustainability initiatives that are extremely relevant to the success of today’s organizations (i.e. how to lead “big change” for competitive advantage). DYNM 7660 will explore the food-water-energy nexus in Italy amid a culture that literally celebrates food, with special emphasis on the systemic challenge of global food loss and waste. The course will involve a special session with experts at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome – the hub of agriculture and food security research for the world – and additional sessions on food, water, energy, SDG and innovation topics with international students and food system experts at the University of Bologna (the oldest University in the world) and the Food Innovation Program led by food system leader Sara Roversi. Potential side trips include tours of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and balsamic vinegar producers, a pasta producer, an Italian supermarket, FICO/Eataly, and Food For Soul (Modena). Students will have some time to explore the wonders of Rome and Bologna on their own as well.

This course introduces students to the history, theories, and contemporary practice of city and regional planning. Readings, lectures, class discussion, and walking tours focus on: - The evolution of planning ideas, strategies, institutions, and powers, and of planning’s influence on cities and regions around the world; - The structure and dynamics of urban change; - The ways planners and social and environmental scientists have understood, theorized, and responded to social, economic, political, and environmental conditions and change over time; and - The development of the planning profession and its relationships with allied fields, examining various types of planning, urban development, and design.

Disaster management reflects society’s organized attempt to protect its members from natural, technological, and terrorist threats. Often, this involves coordinating with local, state, federal, and non-governmental organizations; alerting the public to impending hazards; and developing plans for the sheltering and mass care of those left homeless in the wake of major catastrophe. The field operates through a complex network of specialists, whose activities often assist the day-to-day and long-term operations of disaster management. As a result, planning for a disaster—be it in the realm of mitigation, preparedness, response, or recovery—calls for a thorough understanding of both the natural and social elements of disaster. This course covers an overview of theory, principles, and the operations of disaster management. Topics include a history and evolution of the profession; an exploration of the concepts of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery; state, local, federal, and non-governmental organizations’ roles in disasters; and an investigation of the social, political and economic consequences of disasters.

This course provides an advanced introduction to the design and delivery of energy policy at various levels of government in the U.S. and beyond. Energy presents theoretical and practical challenges across many disciplines and professions, especially in the context of economic development and environmental sustainability at scales ranging from local to global. This course is intended to provide a broad overview of the institutions, legal frameworks, technologies, and markets involved in energy policy by exploring theories and case studies across these topics, with an emphasis on the energy transition necessitated by climate change. That said, a full introduction to energy policy requires multiple courses and Penn offers many salient ones across several schools including Law, Wharton, Weitzman, SAS, and SEAS. The primary goal of this course is to teach students how to think—rather than what to know—about energy policy. As such, this course provides both (a) a foundation for students who want to take additional courses on energy law, markets, technology, or policy and (b) a synthesis for students who have taken such courses and want to connect ideas and issues across disciplines and professions. Our seminar sessions will be largely discussion and exercise based to allow students to develop skills as energy policy analysts and to collectively theorize connections between laws, institutions, policy design, and outcomes.

This course will explore the physical science of the Earth's environment and human interactions with it. Coverage will include the Earth's various environmental systems, various environmental problems, and the direct and indirect causes of these environmental problems. Fresman seminar will mirror the ENVS100 recitation, and have additional discussions and social media projects.

Exploration of the methods and tools for managing land use and shaping the built environment. Presents how to create a successful Comprehensive Plan, Zoning Ordinance, Subdivision Regulations, Capital Improvements Progam, and design guidelines. Also, presents functional area, regional, and state-level plans.

The course is an introduction to the most important concepts in materials science and engineering. You will learn how the control of chemical bonding, synthesis, processing, structure and defects can be used to tailor the properties and performance of materials for applications that range from sustainable sources of energy, to construction, to consumer electronics. Case studies are also included to highlight environmental issues associated with materials degradation. This course includes lab demonstrations of key materials properties and a final project where students research an area of materials technology of their own interest.

The course introduces students to the participants and components to the development process, as well as specific development strategies and design tools for engaging them. Design in this sense is not simply a vision, or a concept utilized for obtaining approvals, it is understood as an encompassing set of procedures that both allow for and ensure that goals are being met at all stages of a project, from early conception through the approval process and building construction. Students will learn how to engage municipal land-use laws and regulations, produce strategies for geometric development based on land-use and environmental constraints, and use simulation to perform value-adding operations to a development proposal. Through lectures and exercises, students will have the opportunity to analyze a building and the redevelopment procedures surrounding it, and develop a geometric response and then parse data from that model to drive a series of documents relating to project cost, funding, and schedule. These documents will be analyzed against a variety of construction means and funding models so time- and cost-effective basis that meets design intentions can be developed. This course is primarily intended for Architecture Students who wish to enroll in the Real Estate Design and Development Certificate.

This course reviews the infrastructure, databases, deployment, and development of emerging digital technologies in cities. We review existing initiatives, discuss challenges and opportunities, and critically evaluate what technology has and has not been able to offer cities. We contrast utopian visions of teaching with the possible realities. Finally, we ask; what makes a city smart?

The study of sustainability-the long term viability of humans in harmony with the environment-has been identified as a critical issue for society and industry and is evolving to examine how society should conduct itself in order to survive.There are a number of aspects to how society organizes its activities that will be reviewed. Issues such as sustainable products, sustainable agriculture, sustainable forestry, sustainable fisheries, and sustainable communities, to name just a few, are areas that are the focus of the need for change.

This course introduces students to basic concepts of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer, with emphasis on applications. The course will focus on first law of thermodynamics, mass and momentum conservation for both closed and open systems. Students will be exposed to the different modes of heat transfer (conduction, convection, and radiation) with attention to conduction and convection applications to heat engines and devices. Hydrostatics, including pressure distribution and forces acting on submerged surfaces, and buoyancy effects will be discussed as how they are related to hydraulic applications. Fluid dynamics will cover inviscid flows, Bernoulli equation, and concepts of lift, drag, and thrust, and how these are related to aerodynamical systems including wind turbines. Introduction to internal flows, head loss in pipes, friction factors, and Moody chart.

This course provides an overview and introduction to urban transportation planning and policy. Although the focus is on US transportation, the course also puts an emphasis on transportation issues in the fast-growing cities of the developing world. The course is organized around: (1) histories and theories of transportation and travel behavior; (2) transportation policy and project evaluation; (3) transportation demand modeling; and (4) multimodal transportation planning and policy. Particular attention is given to interactions between transportation and land use systems.

Health and Healing in Abiayala (the Americas) will introduce students to ecosocial notions of health, colonialism’s contributions to ill-health, and decolonial action as healing action. Part one of the course introduces general concepts of body, health, and illness in biomedical models. It then pivots to the relational and ecosocial practices of body, health, and wellbeing among many First Peoples of the Abiayala, highlighting “radical relationality.” For many First Peoples, community includes humans, plants, animals, ancestors, and earth beings (such as the land, mountains, rivers, and lakes) that are materially, socially, and spiritually interdependent. These beings work together to maintain a “shared body” through practices of reciprocal care. Part two of the course examines how the shared body has been and is threatened by the colonization of Indigenous lands and bodies through (e.g.) land dispossession, pollution, extractive industry, lack of access to quality education and medical care, forced sterilization, forced removal of children, exploitative economic relations, and political violence. The third part of the course will follow how First Peoples of Abiayala are healing from the physical, social, and spiritual wounds of colonialism through decolonial action. First Peoples are creating their own healing centers and ecological protection agencies, engaging in Land Back movements, in legal and direct-action processes to protect the shared body from extractive industry, and reproductive justice movements. Healing is future oriented, powering the “radical resurgence” of First Peoples. Some questions addressed in this class include, where does the body begin and end? What constitutes personhood? How does continued colonization affected indigenous peoples’ health—and that of all peoples? How do indigenous peoples use ancestral knowledges, relation ethics, and local ecologies to help heal historic and contemporary wounds to power their futures? Is there a political dimension to healing? How do autonomy and self-determination figure into healing and wellbeing?

Recent technological changes have raised awareness of the magnitude and devastating long-term effects of poverty, food insecurity, limited and unequal access to education, and other social issues. Coupled with growing awareness of these issues is the emerging sense that traditional government programs and charities may be unable to solve these problems - at least, not alone. What may be needed are new strategies - strategies borne of (a) a deep understanding of the issues; (b) interdisciplinary collaboration; and (c) access to business knowledge, frameworks, and resources. This course is designed to provide the information, strategies, examples, and analytical mindset to make students more rigorous, insightful, and effective in analyzing social ills and crafting potential solutions. Together, a cross-disciplinary group of undergraduate students, including students in Wharton, the College, and other Penn Schools, will examine the nature and extent of two pressing social problems - food insecurity and barriers to post-secondary education - and current approaches to solving these problems.

Planners are increasingly using spatial data and computational models to analyze existing patterns, identify and parameterize key trends and urban processes, visualize alternative futures, and evaluate development impacts. This class is a survey of methods, software, and concepts in modeling systems related to urban and environmental planning. In the first module of the course, students learn methods related to nature-urban interfaces. These models include site suitability analysis; landscape fragmentation analysis, hydrological modeling, pollution monitoring, among others. A second module introduces agent-based simulation of urban and environmental system. The final module of the course features land-use applications including supervised classification of remotely sensed data, and urban growth modeling. Students will learn basics of geo-spatial machine learning using the statistical software language R. No experience with R is required, however, basic familiarity with ArcGIS is required.