| 1 | <p>In this 3+ week module, students will experience the <strong>integration of climate science, economics, and law</strong> in the formulation of federal policy to address climate change. The module is interdisciplinary and interactive. Students will use an educational, web-based Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model (webDICE) to estimate the <strong>social costs of climate change</strong> and its <strong>abatement under different future emission scenarios</strong>. They will also play the <strong>Carbon Emissions Game</strong> to gain an understanding of the tradeoffs amongst different approaches to regulating carbon emissions. Upon completion, students will be able to explain the scientific evidence for man-made climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the policy options available for achieving emission reductions (e.g., emissions trading, carbon tax), and the legal basis for regulating carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act. The module emphasizes the importance of systems thinking when seeking viable solutions to complex socio-environmental problems like climate change. The capstone assignment asks students to write an Op-Ed arguing for the need to regulate carbon emissions in a Role, Audience, Format, Topic (RAFT) writing exercise. This module promotes responsible stewardship of the Earth.</p> | 1 | <p>Using CO2 emissions data from the World Bank, students are introduced data visualization tools in the software Tableau. Students learn how to display data in bar charts, line charts, thematic maps, and other types of visualization such as tree maps, box plots, bubble charts, etc. Tableau is a software for business intelligence and analytics with a focus on user-friendly data visualization. In class, we use the free version Tableau Public to practice data visualization skills.</p>
|
|---|
| | | 2 |
|
|---|
| | | 3 | <p><strong>Case study or module title: </strong>Visualizing Global CO2 Emissions (adapted from the original case study <a href="http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/carbon_emissions/index.html" target="_blank">Regulating Carbon Emissions</a> by Robyn Smyth, Sandra Penny, Curt Gervich, Gautam Sethi, Eric Leibensperger, and Pinar Batur, InTeGrate)</p>
|
|---|
| | | 4 |
|
|---|
| | | 5 | <p><strong>Course/Course format: </strong>“Socio-Environmental Data Analysis Workshop”, junior/senior/graduate major and non-majors, 20 students, 2 2-hour lab time each week, taught in a computer lab</p>
|
|---|
| | | 6 |
|
|---|
| | | 7 | <p><strong>This publication includes three files:</strong></p>
|
|---|
| | | 8 |
|
|---|
| | | 9 | <ol>
|
|---|
| | | 10 | <li>Teaching Notes and Implementation Plan</li>
|
|---|
| | | 11 | <li>Instruction and Assignment</li>
|
|---|
| | | 12 | <li>World_Bank_CO2 (Excel emissions data)</li>
|
|---|
| | | 13 | </ol>
|
|---|
| | | 14 |
|
|---|
| | | 15 | <p><strong>Quantitative learning objective:</strong></p>
|
|---|
| | | 16 |
|
|---|
| | | 17 | <ul>
|
|---|
| | | 18 | <li>The ability to search and obtain data on climate change-related topics (carbon emissions specially) from the public domain</li>
|
|---|
| | | 19 | <li>The ability to clean up and organize data on a spreadsheet</li>
|
|---|
| | | 20 | <li>The ability to create relevant data visualization (charts, maps, tables) to answer specific research questions related to climate change</li>
|
|---|
| | | 21 | <li>The ability to use the Tableau software to present visualization work</li>
|
|---|
| | | 22 | <li>The ability to tell a story about climate change (based on data analysis) and put together a Tableau dashboard</li>
|
|---|
| | | 23 | </ul>
|
|---|
| | | 24 |
|
|---|
| | | 25 | <p><strong>Socio-environmental learning objective:</strong></p>
|
|---|
| | | 26 |
|
|---|
| | | 27 | <ul>
|
|---|
| | | 28 | <li>The ability to describe trends in climate change data. For carbon emissions specifically, trends through time and trends across countries</li>
|
|---|
| | | 29 | <li>Based on the trends identified above, develop the ability to connect carbon emission data to socio-economic development of different countries through time</li>
|
|---|
| | | 30 | <li>Based on the trends identified above, develop the ability to connect carbon emission data to environmental justice questions on the global scale</li>
|
|---|
| | | 31 | <li>Based on the trends identified above and the following discussion, develop the ability to formulate carbon emission reduction strategies and plans</li>
|
|---|
| | | 32 | </ul>
|
|---|
| | | 33 |
|
|---|
| | | 34 | <p> </p> |
|---|