Climate change is an urgent and multifaceted challenge facing all of society.
Harvard faculty teach an expanding array of courses examining the many dimensions of this shared challenge. Explore courses in climate and sustainability ranging from economics and English to public health and climate science.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE SALATA INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABILITY
The purpose of this course is to build the capacity of graduate students to navigate complex political crises in uncertain times, to develop a strategic vision on how to respond to humanitarian emergencies, and to plan a negotiation process in adversarial conditions. The 2024 edition of the Frontline Negotiation Lab will explore the challenges and dilemmas of the response to a climate-induced crisis and the work of negotiators and facilitators confronted with the growing distrust and tensions among key stakeholders and the affected population.
Topics in linear algebra that frequently arise in applications, especially in the analysis of large data sets: linear equations, eigenvalue problems, linear differential equations, principal component analysis, singular value decomposition; data mining and machine learning methods: clustering (unsupervised learning) and classification (supervised) using neural networks and random forests
Emphasis is on the construction of simple engineering models and the application of chemical principles to understand and address current environmental issues.
This seminar course is designed to teach an understanding of the basic principles of water pollution and water pollution issues on local, regional and global scales.
The seminars consist of student presentation of plans for collection and analysis of data, with discussion by students and faculty. Preparatory work is done under tutorial arrangements with members of the faculty. The emphasis is on conceptual issues necessary for the development of a feasible and informative study.
The course provides an overview of Earth’s energy resources, with emphasize on the factors that control their global distributions and uses in our society. Lectures and labs will emphasize methods used to identify and exploit resources, as well as the environmental impact of these operations.
The course is meant for any student with basic math preparation, not assuming prior science courses. Topics include the greenhouse effect and the consequences of the rise of greenhouse gasses, including sea level rise, ocean acidification, heat waves, droughts, glacier melting, hurricanes, forest fires, and more.
This course is intended as a survey of the ideas, theories, data, methods and debates in the study of global health and population. It is organized around two major themes. The first theme – family and population health – will cover the major present and future drivers of population health globally (such as aging, urbanization, changing lifestyles, pandemics, and climate change), as well as the major burdens of diseases and their global distributions. It will further cover the important relationships between global health, human development and equitable societies. The second theme – health systems – will cover underlying theories and empirical evidence for analyzing different components of a health care system and how they interact with each other to determine a health system’s performance.
In this course, we will explore the development of our modern food production and distribution system and its effects on our environment and planet. To explore the opportunities for and challenges to achieving a sustainable food system, we will critically review published studies and other assessments that evaluate the environmental and social impact of food-related products and processes.
The purpose of this course is to provide cognitive and heuristic tools to public health practitioners to be well prepared to plan for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the impact of health disasters precipitated by a variety of threats. The course will provide learners with an awareness of the wide-ranging collaborative processes necessary among public health and medical service providers, as well as cross sectoral dependencies on others such as energy, transportation, public safety, etc.