This course explores the physical, ecological, technological, political, economic, and cultural implications of big plans and mega-urban landscapes in a global context. It uses local and international case studies to understand the process of making major changes to urban landscape and city fabric, and to regional landscape systems. It includes lectures by leading practitioners. The assignments consider planning and design strategies across multiple scales and time frames.

Join us for this webinar to hear how colleges are transitioning from individual faculty OER course adoptions to entire departments and OER degree pathways. OER leaders at colleges who have reached critical mass in their implementation will share best practices for sustaining faculty engagement, student involvement, project funding, and institutional commitment to OER adoption for the enhancement of teaching and learning.

Our featured speakers are both longtime community college leaders in the OER movement at regional and district levels. They will engage each other in discussions on the themes mentioned above and invite questions from webinar attendees.

Around the world, major challenges of our time such as population growth and climate change are being addressed in cities. Here, citizens play an important role amidst governments, companies, NGOs and researchers in creating social, technological and political innovations for achieving sustainability.

Citizens can be co-creators of sustainable cities when they engage in city politics or in the design of the urban environment and its technologies and infrastructure. In addition, citizens influence and are influenced by the technologies and systems that they use every day. Sustainability is thus a result of the interplay between technology, policy and people’s daily lives. Understanding this interplay is essential for creating sustainable cities. In this MOOC, we zoom in on Amsterdam, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Nairobi, Kampala and Suzhou as living labs for exploring the dynamics of co-creation for sustainable cities worldwide. We will address topics such as participative democracy and legitimacy, ICTs and big data, infrastructure and technology, and SMART technologies in daily life.

This course focuses on the complexities associated with security and sustainability of states in international relations. Covering aspects of theory, methods and empirical analysis, the course is in three parts, and each consists of seminar sessions focusing on specific topics.

This culturally-relevant text set offer different perspectives for students to see as well aswonderful conversation starters. Students learn of different careers within the IndigenousWorld. Some of those careers being: Traditional Seed Keepers, Gardeners, KnowledgeKeepers, Storytellers, and More!Dig your bare feet into the soil and feel those connections to your ancestors, the land, theplants, animals, and all things. We are all connected. Let’s work together and connect our pastto the present, for the future... of learning!

D-Lab: Energy offers a hands-on, project-based approach that engages students in understanding and addressing the applications of small-scale, sustainable energy technology in developing countries where compact, robust, low-cost systems for generating power are required. Projects may include micro-hydro, solar, or wind turbine generators along with theoretical analysis, design, prototype construction, evaluation and implementation. Students will have the opportunity both to travel to Nicaragua during spring break to identify and implement projects. D-Lab: Energy is part of MIT’s D-Lab program, which fosters the development of appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions within the framework of international development. This course is an elective subject in MIT’s underGraduate / Professional Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

D-Lab Development addresses issues of technological improvements at the micro level for developing countries—in particular, how the quality of life of low-income households can be improved by adaptation of low cost and sustainable technologies. Discussion of development issues as well as project implementation challenges are addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with mostly local level organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Project team meetings focus on developing specific projects and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the countries and localities to be visited as well as an introduction to the local languages.

D-Lab: Design addresses problems faced by undeserved communities with a focus on design, experimentation, and prototyping processes. Particular attention is placed on constraints faced when designing for developing countries. Multidisciplinary teams work on semester-long projects in collaboration with community partners, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields. Topics covered include design for affordability, design for manufacture, sustainability, and strategies for working effectively with community partners and customers. Students may continue projects begun in EC.701J D-Lab I: Development.

This course focuses on disseminating Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) or water/environment innovations in developing countries and underserved communities worldwide. It emphasizes core WASH and water/environment principles, culture-specific solutions, tools for start-ups, appropriate and sustainable technologies, behavior change, social marketing, building partnerships, and the theory and practice of innovation diffusion.

The course considers the growing popularity of sustainability and its implications for the practice of engineering, particularly for the built environment. Two particular methodologies are featured: life cycle assessment (LCA) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). The fundamentals of each approach will be presented. Specific topics covered include water and wastewater management, energy use, material selection, and construction.

What follows is a collection of lessons on soils that supported a larger inquiry-based project by 7th and 8th grade students on food security in the Waupaca area community. The project was designed to be implemented using the large community garden as a context for learning. This community garden is a showcase feature of the Chain Exploration Center, a 4K-8 school, and, through the efforts of students, teachers, families, and community volunteers, has grown, and donated, a staggering amount of fresh produce for local food pantries. Students of the Chain of Exploration Center were fortunate to work with the nutrient management specialist of the Land and Water Conservation Office of Waupaca County for soil sampling and analysis. This community member provided soil probes and the expertise in collection of samples. He also sent the samples on to the lab and assisted in the interpretation of the results. 

Students gain an understanding of the factors that affect wind turbine operation. Following the steps of the engineering design process, engineering teams use simple materials (cardboard and wooden dowels) to build and test their own turbine blade prototypes with the objective of maximizing electrical power output for a hypothetical situation—helping scientists power their electrical devices while doing research on a remote island. Teams explore how blade size, shape, weight and rotation interact to achieve maximal performance, and relate the power generated to energy consumed on a scale that is relevant to them in daily life. A PowerPoint® presentation, worksheet and post-activity test are provided.

How does infrastructure meet our needs? What happens when we are cut off from that supporting infrastructure? As a class, students brainstorm, identify and explore the pathways where their food, water and energy originate, and where wastewater and solid waste go. After creating a diagram that maps a neighborhood's inputs and waste outputs, closed and open system concepts are introduced by imagining the neighborhood enclosed in a giant dome, cut off from its infrastructure systems. Students consider the implications and the importance of sustainable resource and waste management. They learn that resources are interdependent and that recycling wastes into resources is key to sustain a closed system.

Student teams find solutions to hypothetical challenge scenarios that require them to sustainably manage both resources and wastes. They begin by creating a card representing themselves and the resources (inputs) they need and wastes (outputs) they produce. Then they incorporate additional cards for food and energy components and associated necessary resources and waste products. They draw connections between outputs that provide inputs for other needs, and explore the problem of using linear solutions in resource-limited environments. Then students incorporate cards based on biorecycling technologies, such as algae photobioreactors and anaerobic digesters in order to make circular connections. Finally, the student teams present their complete biorecycling engineering solutions to their scenarios in poster format by connecting outputs to inputs, and showing the cycles of how wastes become resources.

Professor Carter is a theorist/computational scientist first known for her research combining ab initio quantum chemistry with dynamics and kinetics, especially as applied to surface chemistry. Her research into how materials fail due to chemical and mechanical effects led to new insights into how to optimally protect these materials against failure. Her current research is focused entirely on enabling discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy.

Ecologies of Construction examines the resource requirements for the making and maintenance of the contemporary built environment. This course introduces the field of industrial ecology as a primary source of concepts and methods in the mapping of material and energy expenditures dedicated to construction activities.

Choice of material has implications throughout the life-cycle of a product, influencing many aspects of economic and environmental performance. This course will provide a survey of methods for evaluating those implications. Lectures will cover topics in material choice concepts, fundamentals of engineering economics, manufacturing economics modeling methods, and life-cycle environmental evaluation.

This course examines the choices and constraints regarding sources and uses of energy by households, firms, and governments through a number of frameworks to describe and explain behavior at various levels of aggregation. Examples include a wide range of countries, scope, settings, and analytical approaches. This course is one of many OCW Energy Courses, and it is a core subject in MIT’s underGraduate / Professional Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

This course explores the theoretical and empirical perspectives on individual and industrial demand for energy, energy supply, energy markets, and public policies affecting energy markets. It discusses aspects of the oil, natural gas, electricity, and nuclear power sectors and examines energy tax, price regulation, deregulation, energy efficiency and policies for controlling emission.

Engineering a Difference follows three teams of engineering students and professional engineers as they work with communities in Ghana, Kenya and Nicaragua to build critical infrastructure. Together, they develop a clean water supply, electricity and a bridge to help these isolated communities thrive. Here are colorful, compelling stories of how engineers make the world a better place.