The Certificate
Course Descriptions
AME 57 Survey of Energy and Power for a Sustainable Future (3 units)
Power production includes conventional fossil fuels, synthetic fuels, hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and nuclear. The environmental consequences of various energy sources are discussed.
CHEM 510 Alternative Energy Technologies and Options (4 units)
Introduce the essential scientific background to understand complex issues involving energy use and its environmental consequences. Critically analyze energy issues that will shape policy decisions.
ISE 576 Industrial Ecology (3 units)
Approaches and tools to evaluate products, processes, and systems in their entire life-cycle, including: material flow analysis, Design for Environment, input-output analysis, life-cycle assessment, industrial symbiosis, and sustainable consumption.
ENST 530 Environmental Risk Analysis (4 units)
Analyzes various potential environmental risks and examines how science, government and business measure and prepare for environmental risk.
ECON 587 Advanced Natural Resource and Environmental Economics (4 units)
Covers the application of microeconomic theory to the management of natural resources, pollution, and environmental hazards.
POSC 545 Critical Issues in Politics and Policy (4 units)
Selected topics in politics and policy; focus on current issues shaping the U.S. and the world.
POSC 546 Seminar in Environmental Policy (4 units)
Issues and theories involved in the formulation, implementation, and effectiveness of different environmental policies.
PPD 692 Transportation and the Environment (4 units)
Analysis of the benefits and costs of urban transportation; concepts of social costs; benefits and externalities; environmental costs; social justice issues; policy and planning alternatives for sustainable transportation.
GEOG 601 Sustainable Cities (4 units)
Exploration of environmental problems linked to urbanization, drawing on historical analysis, social theory, scientific research, and city planning/design practice. Alternative policy options for urban sustainability.
ARCH 519 Sustainability in the Environment: Infrastructures, Urban Landscapes, and Buildings (3 units)
Methodologies and exercises on contextual design and environmentally sound technologies (EST's) applications for the sustainability of urban infrastructures, operative landscapes, and building integration in the urban system.
ARCH 611 Advanced Building Systems Integration (4 units)
Design criteria development, material and construction process methods, occupancy based load profiles, performance/material life-cycle-mandates, durability for advanced building systems including integrity in sustainable urban systems.
GEOL 525 The Science of Climate Change (4 units)
Introduce students to the fundamental aspects and the factors that influence ocean and atmospheric behavior, and how the Earth's climate has varied in the past.