Title: Bringing Energy to Environmental and Sustainability Studies and Sciences

Length: Full-day

Theme and justification:

Courses in environmental and sustainability studies and sciences address many topics strongly linked to energy, such as climate change, air and water pollution, conservation and biodiversity, health, and others.  Nevertheless, instruction on the challenges of changing energy systems often doesn’t receive due consideration.

For example, courses that include climate change almost certainly include information on the fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) as the sources of the most important, anthropogenic greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide.  In addition, the course probably notes that renewable energy replacing fossil fuels can mitigate climate change.

The challenges of climate change, however, go far beyond simply presenting renewable energy as mitigation for climate change.  Is it possible for students to learn more about energy and the challenges of substituting alternative sources?

For a variety of reasons, faculty members and graduate students in environmental and sustainability studies may have gaps in their knowledge and thus may hesitate to delve into energy.  This workshop will directly address that gap.  Moreover, the workshop fully embraces the notion that teaching energy must involve faculty and students other than those in physical science and engineering.  Current and future environmental instructors can and must participate in revamping the world’s energy economy.

Goals and learning outcomes:

This workshop will assist instructors and graduate students who want to enrich their ability to teach and learn about energy.  It will help those who have never taught energy come up to speed, and for those who have, it will help them deepen their knowledge and skill in the subject.  The workshop will examine the theories and bodies of knowledge that instructors can use to foster student learning and their abilities to act on this knowledge.  It will also illustrate methods of teaching that best advance student learning.

The learning outcomes include (a) frameworks for placing energy into environmental and sustainability studies, (b) the physical knowledge and quantitative insight needed by students not majoring in the physical sciences or engineering, (c) social and cultural issues, including race, class, and gender, (d) the international dimensions of energy, and (e) developing practical programs on campus to augment student learning.

We will prepare a report on the workshop for the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

Topics and activities:

In the morning session, workshop leaders will present intellectual frameworks, theories, and knowledge bases they have found useful.  Ample time will allow discussion of these ideas by participants.  In the afternoon session, participants will work in teams or as individuals to develop new approaches to teaching energy on their campuses.  Each team or individual will present their thoughts for further discussion and feedback from other participants.

Confirmed leaders and their qualifications:

1. Catherine H Middlecamp, PhD. Middlecamp teaches environmental science in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  She is the editor-in-chief for the 7th and 8th editions of Chemistry in Context, a national curriculum project of the American Chemical Society.  With Perkins and others, she published “Energy education and the dilemma of mitigating climate change” and “Energy education: easy, difficult, or both?”

2. Sharlissa Moore, PhD. Moore teaches international energy policy and nuclear energy policy to public policy and engineering students at Michigan State University, focusing on energy justice and the societal aspects of energy.

3. John H Perkins, PhD. Perkins taught environmental and energy studies at The Evergreen State College, where he developed a new class, Energy Matters.  He has a forthcoming book in press, Changing Energy (University of California Press).

4. Richard Wolfson, PhD. Wolfson teaches physics and environmental studies at Middlebury College. The 3^rd edition of his textbook Energy, Environment, and Climate (W.W. Norton), will be published in 2017.  In 1993, he published Nuclear Choices: A Citizen’s Guide to Nuclear Technology.

Brief description:

This workshop promotes bringing energy into environmental and sustainability studies and sciences.  Learning outcomes include (a) frameworks for placing energy in these curricula, (b) the physical science and quantitative literacy needed, (c) social and cultural issues, including race, class, and gender, (d) international aspects of energy and (e) developing practical internships on campus.