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
This course examines the existing scientific literature on animal-driven contributions to large-scale environmental processes, exploring multiple facets of animal-induced effects, and comparing their magnitude to abiotic and anthropogenic drivers.
This course will focus on physical principles underlying semiconductor devices: electrons and holes in semiconductors , energies and bandgaps, transport properties of electrons and holes, p-n junctions, transistors, light emitting diodes, lasers, solar cells and thermoelectric devices.
The course is designed as an in-depth study of the place of Central Asia in Eurasian and global politics, and the policies of key external actors, such as Russia, the United States, China, the European Union, Turkey, Iran, Japan, South Korea and India, toward the region.
In this course, we will focus on religious literacy in the professions of journalism, Arts and popular culture, government, humanitarian action, education, and organizing. How can a nuanced and complex understanding of religion enhance the ability of professionals in these fields to serve their populations?
This course analyzes what role the government plays and should play in a market economy. It covers topics such as tax policy, health care policy, retirement policy, environmental protection, and state and local policy. The course emphasizes recent empirical research on policy issues and teaches students how to conduct such studies. Much of the material we will cover relates directly to ongoing policy debates.
Leaders and change agents of all kinds often must engage effectively with people whose worldviews are very different than their own. Conflicts involving deeply held values and other fundamental differences in perspective present special challenges and may require adjustments to approaches to negotiation we use in other situations. Through interdisciplinary readings, presentations, negotiation simulations, dialogue experiences, exercises, discussion, and reflective practices, this practice-focused, workshop style course aims to help participants become more aware of how their own and others’ worldviews influence conflicts involving identity-defining value differences and to help them become more effective negotiators.
The nutritional health of the public begins with food. There are two goals of this course: (1) To learn the basics of food science and technology, including food composition, chemistry, processing, and engineering; and (2) to understand how the broader food environment, including agricultural practices, food policy, and food trade, affects food availability and consumption. Through lectures, discussions, and group projects, students will be challenged to think critically about how the food supply impacts public health.
Concepts developed for understanding today's atmosphere are applied to understanding the record of past climate change and the prospects for climate change in the future.
Through this course, participants will learn how to study the influence of built and natural environments on an array of health outcomes, receive a basic introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (no prior knowledge required), will learn to assess the evidence behind different associations observed in the literature, and will explore the policy and decision-making processes that facilitate built and natural environment changes.
The past decade has brought dynamism, complexity, and growth in health organizations, from integrated care delivery systems to multi-service nonprofits. As a result, healthcare work settings are increasingly fast paced, interdependent and uncertain – and COVID-19 has greatly intensified these trends. These conditions make management and organizational behavior ever more critical to performance. How can leaders help their organizations and teams to thrive in such dynamic settings? How can they simultaneously organize for tight execution and innovation, build resilience in the face of crisis, achieve influence amid limited authority, and treat people respectfully without burning out? These are questions of organizational behavior and theory.
This course is designed to expose students to the theory and practice of innovation and entrepreneurship in health care settings, both domestically and abroad.