Courses Offered in Fall 2025
ENGS 305 “Climate Fiction and Sustainability”
This course will examine the political and socioeconomic consequences of climate change, whether natural or brought about by human behavior. Written before global warming was identified as a potentially existential threat, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962), a foundational text of this subgenre, explores the psychological effects of surviving in a world that has become largely uninhabitable through circumstances beyond human agency. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), the first book in her MaddAddam trilogy, foresees the ecological consequences of unregulated corporate consumerism shaping technology and escalating the depletion of natural resources. Jeff Vandermeer’s Hummingbird Salamander (2021) depicts the consequences of mass extinction through human-caused environmental degradation. Finally, Lily Brooks-Dalton’s The Light Pirate (2022) envisions an alternate Florida left to cope with hurricanes and rapidly rising sea levels. Taken together, these novels address the often unforeseeable social consequences of environmental crises.
NTSS 301 “Technical Solutions to Climate Change”
We are already seeing consequences of a warming, changing climate–excessive heat in places that normally never experience such temperatures, drought, wildfires, sea level rise, increased tropical storm activity, etc. Besides cutting back on fossil fuel use, is there anything else that can be done? Are there any technologies that exist or could be developed to reverse or lessen these impacts? Students in this course will investigate these questions as well as develop an understanding of what we know about climate change, how we know it, and what the short-term and long-term repercussions of a warming planet are.
ELES 302: “Water Security under Climate Change”
The most serious and high-profile impacts of climate change are being felt through water: floods, droughts, melting of ice, and reduced snow cover, amongst others. Water is also a major sustainable development challenge: worldwide, 844 million people lack access to drinking water, and 2.3 billion do not have access to latrines or other basic sanitation facilities, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. High-income countries are also faced with water-related policy and engineering dilemmas. Therefore, water is at the center of the sustainable development and climate action agendas, and water security is seen as the ultimate goal of effective water management. The course explores the concept of water security, threats to water security, and established and emerging practices for managing water under climate change. The course introduces key water issues around the world, including access to water supply and sanitation, flood and drought risk management, irrigation water service provision, and freshwater ecosystem degradation. Established and emerging engineering and policy practices for addressing these issues under climate change will be reviewed, including risk-based water resources planning, water allocation reform, and nature-based solutions.
PHYS 150 “Introduction to Climate Science”
This course provides an introductory scientific overview of Earth’s climate system. An emphasis will be given to the core scientific concepts that form our understanding of our global climate and the physical processes that drive climate change. Topics include the tools used in modeling and interpreting past climate; observations of Earth’s global atmosphere and ocean circulation; the role of water, energy, and heat in the climate system; natural and human drivers of climate change; and future projections of Earth’s climate.