Pa 5711: science, technology, and environmental policy
Interplay of science, technology, the environment, and society. Approaches from across the social sciences will cover how science and technology can create new environmental pressures as well as policy challenges in a range of spheres from climate change to systems of intellectual property and international development.
Broadly, we will spend the first four weeks focused on science and technology policy (with many examples drawn from the environmental sphere). The next four weeks will focus on environmental policy (with many examples and connections drawn to science and technology issues). The final four weeks examine cross-cutting issues across science, technology, and environmental policy, which will include student presentations on a cross-cutting topic of choice.
pa 5724: climate change policy
Existing and proposed approaches to mitigate and adapt to climate change through policies that cross scales of governance (from local to global) and impact a wide range of sectors. Exploration of climate change policy from a variety of disciplinary approaches and perspectives, emphasizing economic logic, ethical principles, and institutional feasibility. How policy can be shaped in the face of a variety of competing interests to achieve commonly desired outcomes. Students develop a deep knowledge of climate change in particular countries through a team final project.
This course will explore existing and proposed approaches to mitigate and adapt to climate change through policies that cross scales of governance (from the local to the global) and that impact a wide range of sectors (energy, transportation, manufacturing, water, agriculture, buildings, etc.). The course will explore climate change policy from a variety of disciplinary approaches and perspectives, emphasizing economic logic, ethical principles, and institutional feasibility. Students will have the opportunity to develop deep knowledge of climate change in particular countries through a team final project. A key theme of the course will be how policy can be shaped in the face of a variety of competing interests to achieve commonly desired outcomes.
pa 5045: statistics for public affairs, accelerated
Introduces a range of quantitative tools that are commonly used to inform issues in public affairs. The course provides an introduction to descriptive statistics, probability, and statistical inference, with an emphasis on the ways in which quantitative tools are applied to a diverse range of practical policy questions. PA 5045 is an accelerated treatment of applied statistics for public affairs and serves as a more mathematically and conceptually rigorous alternative to PA 5031.
pa 8706: Interdisciplinary
research seminar on science, technology, and environmental policy
This course will give students foundational understanding of conducting research on social and policy processes concerning science, technology, and the environment (STEP). STEP is an intensely interdisciplinary area of Public Affairs. As such, this course will lay the foundation for designing an interdisciplinary research program in the STEP field by introducing key concepts, canonical literature, and new and emerging research directions. After examining research approaches within multiple disciplines and at multiple scales of social and political processes, students will create dissertation research strategies, including plans to develop greater domain expertise and to carve out interdisciplinary niches. Significant portions of this course will be student led and the exact topics we cover will vary according to student interest. The assignments for the course will largely be driven by readings. Students taking the course for credit will also prepare a research proposal addressing a novel research question and/or research design.