Graduate Courses

Perspectives on Sustainability (3) Uses case studies; faculty and students from engineering, architecture, social sciences, and natural sciences exchange ideas on the major challenges faced in forming a sustainable future at the local, national, and global levels. * Enrollment restricted to sustainability graduate students

Quantitative Methods in Sustainability (3) Provides a sense of when, where, and how quantitative methods are used in studying questions related to sustainability; a roadmap for furthering quantitative skill sets; and opportunities to refresh and build some basic mathematical skills from selected topics in differential and integral calculus, linear algebra, and probability and statistics that will be required for further study. * Enrollment restricted to sustainability graduate students

Sustainable Resource Allocation (3) Microeconomic principles of resource allocation applied to environmental goods and services; external environmental effects and environmental public goods; decision-making under uncertainty; adapting to and mitigation of environmental changes.

Science for Sustainability (3) Carbon cycle; nutrient cycles; carbon and nutrients in the oceans; climate change; oxygen and ozone; solid-waste pollution; urban-air pollution.

Human Dimensions of Sustainability (3) Concepts and definitions of the human dimensions of sustainability; the role of attitudes and values in shaping sustainability goals, practices, and programs; the diversity of values and socio-cultural contexts relating to sustainability; bottom-up and top-down sustainable policy development, social data collection methodologies.

Industrial Ecology and Design for Sustainability (3) The conceptual, ethical, and practical challenges in the design, manufacture, and lifecycle performance of products; environmental evaluation via materials flow analysis and life cycle assessment; global economic, environmental, cultural, and social aspects of competitive and functional product development and manufacture.

Science, Technology, and Public Affairs (3) Explores the political, economic, cultural, and moral foundations of science and technology policy and governance in democratic society. * Sustainability graduate students may count either SOS 516 or SOS 591 Uncertainty and Decision Making as a core course.

Uncertainty and Decision Making (3) Explores uncertainty and its relation to decision making, with a particular focus on the ways that science is applied in order to improve decisions. A central theme will be the relation among uncertainty, scientific prediction, and decision making, especially in politically charged issues, for example as related to management of the environment. * Sustainability graduate students may count either SOS 516 or SOS 591 Uncertainty and Decision Making as a core course.

Sustainability and Enterprise (3) Examines the evolving interface between sustainability and human enterprise. Explores and reviews key fundamental concepts in the sustainability arena. Delves into specific case studies of attempts by current businesses to become "greener" and "more sustainable." Alternative enterprise models and examples of businesses that are using the current context to redefine the sustainability and enterprise interface will be also explored and discussed. Explores and applies an integrated approach to sustainability and enterprise.

International Development and Sustainability (3) Historical roots of the idea of development; economic theories of growth and their implications for sustainability; interrelationship among population growth, food security, poverty, inequality, urbanization, technological change, international trade, and environmental change at local, regional and global scale.

Sustainable Urban Dynamics (3) Human and physical processes shaping urban ecologies and environments; human-environment interactions in the context of an urban region; effect of the institution and regulatory framework on the ability of social and urban-ecological systems to be resilient and sustainable; urban design, materials, transport, planning, and regulation.

Sustainable Water (3) Hydrological, legal, political, and ecological implications of alternative water management strategies; effect of institutional and regulatory frameworks; changes in water demand and supply due to human (population growth, economic changes) and natural (drought, climate change) factors.

Sustainable Energy and Material Use (3) Sustainable engineering; overall energy needs and impacts; thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid mechanisms; atmospheric energy systems; field investigation; current and future urban energy systems.

Sustainable Ecosystems (3) How human activities and management practices alter biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the provisioning of ecosystem services; use of economic and other social-science perspectives to estimate the value of ecosystem services; evaluation of options for achieving the sustainable flow of services from ecosystems.

Food System Sustainability (3) Takes a broad view of food systems and the sustainability of such systems. Students are exposed to concepts, theory, methods and empirical analyses from diverse disciplines, including agro-ecology, agronomy, political science, agricultural economics, geography, anthropology and food and nutrition studies.

Workshop (3) Particular workshop classes will be offered each semester under the number SOS 594. Topics will change, so students should check with the graduate academic specialist for a current list of available workshops. Past workshops include: Fall 09: Future Scenarios for Agriculture and Water in Arizona (3) Spring 09: Advanced Urban Workshop (3) Spring 09: Canal Village Workshop (3) Spring 09: Science-Society Research Collaborations on Sustainability (3) Fall 08: Socio-ecology of Residential Landscapes (3) Fall 08: Superstition Vistas: Scenarios for Sustainable Development (3) Spring 08: Climate Change Adaptation (3) Spring 08: Valuation of Ecological Services in the Phoenix Area (3) Spring 08: Developing Sustainability Curriculum (3) Spring 08: Development of Methodology & Determination or Carbon Neutral Buildings Fall 07: State Land Workshop (3) Fall 07: Networks, Knowledge and Environment Management (3)

Introduction to Sustainability and Organizational Strategies (3) Focuses on organizational strategies for technology companies competing in a global environment. Strategic and tactical decision implications of a life cycle value proposition; modeling and analysis for strategic decisions about product/service bundles and delivery mechanisms; innovation; technology, including the linkages to the firm strategy and empirical evidence; supply, demand, and value chain; research of laws, guidelines and international agreements.

Water Policy and Management (3) Covers water policy and management focused on Arizona. Useful to anyone looking for a general background on water issues in Arizona or considering a career in water resources and environmental engineering, planning, or public policy. Divided into three major sections: the history of water resources development and hydrology of Arizona; water management in Arizona; and an examination of current issues and controversies.

Advanced Earth Systems Engineering and Management (3) Advanced introduction to earth systems engineering and management, and the technological, economic and cultural systems underlying the terra-formed Earth.

Sustainable Technology and Management Capstone (3) Provides opportunity to demonstrate comprehension of the fundamental aspects that have been introduced in the classroom and the synthesis of these fundamental aspects into a demonstrable project that can be presented and defended. *Enrollment restricted to CSTM certificate students

Proposal Writing (3) This practice-oriented seminar assists doctoral students in preparing requests for funding from different agencies, and preparing dissertation proposals for a doctoral committee and defense

Graduate Brown Bag Discussion Group (1) * Enrollment restricted to sustainability graduate students

SOS Reading Group (1) * Enrollment restricted to sustainability graduate students

Urban Remote Sensing Reading Group (1)

Community of Graduate Research Scholars (1)

Dynamic Modeling and Socio and Ecological Systems (3)

Ecosystems Engineering (1)

Environmental Justice and the City (3)

Institutions, Environment, and Society (3)

IGERT Intellectual Issues (3)

Legal Issues in Sustainability (3)

Social Dimensions of Science (3)

Social Science Climate Change (3

Water Resources: Geography and Policy (3)

Urban IGERT Grad Mentoring (3)

Energy Conservation and Efficiency (3)

Statistical Modeling for Sustainability (3)

Socio-Ecological Research Methods (3

Sustainable Transportation Systems (3)

Urban Ecological Systems (3)