Unit 1: Slip-sliding away: case study landslides in Italy and Peru
Sarah Hall, College of the Atlantic; Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
How have mass-wasting events affected communities, and what lessons have we learned from these natural disasters that might help us mitigate future hazards? In this unit, students answer these questions by being ...

Future of Food
Future of Food Gigi Richard (Colorado Mesa University) Heather Karsten (Pennsylvania State University) Steve Vanek (Pennsylvania State University) Karl Zimmerer (Pennsylvania State University') Editor: Timothy Bralower (Pennsylvania State University)
The Future of Food is an introductory-level science course that emphasizes the challenges facing food systems in the 21st century, including issues of sustainability, resilience, and adaptive capacity, and the ...

11. Composting Toilets
Maurice Crawford, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore; Benjamin Cuker, Hampton University
Toilet use accounts for the largest use of water in single family homes. In 2016, the average US household toilet accounted for a quarter of a home's total indoor water. Compost toilets are one method that may ...

Unit 2: Global Sea-Level Response to Temperature Changes: Temperature and Altimetry Data
Bruce Douglas, Indiana University-Bloomington; Susan Kaspari, Central Washington University
What is the contribution of seawater thermal expansion to recent sea-level rise? In this unit, students create time-series graphs of global averaged sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) data spanning 1880–2017 ...

Module 2: History of Food Systems
Steven Vanek, Pennsylvania State Univ-Penn St. Erie-Behrend Coll; Karl Zimmerer, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
This second module in the Future of Food course provides a historical overview of the emergence and development of food systems until the present. Module 2.1, the first half of this module, describes the transition ...

Unit 1: Exploring the Reservoirs and Pathways and Methods to Measure the Hydrologic Cycle
Jon Harvey (Fort Lewis College) and Becca Walker (Mt. San Antonio College)
How does water move throughout the Earth system? How do scientists measure the amount of water that moves through these pathways? This unit provides an alternative way for students to learn the major components of ...

Module 1: Introduction
Steven Vanek, Pennsylvania State Univ-Penn St. Erie-Behrend Coll; Karl Zimmerer, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
In the two introductory modules (1.1 and 1.2) of the course we will introduce the main theme of the course: learning about food systems as systems that combine human social systems, with the natural earth system ...

Unit 4: The Magic of Geophysical Inversion
Compiled by Lee Slater, Rutgers University Newark (lslater@newark.rutgers.edu) Download a ZIP file of this Unit
This unit introduces the student to the concept of geophysical inversion, which is the process of estimating the geophysical properties of the subsurface from the geophysical observations. The basic mechanics of ...

8. Efficiency and Conservation
Maurice Crawford, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore
Household energy use accounts for a significant portion of the nation's energy use; therefore, an important aspect of energy conservation is having buildings that are energy efficient. In this activity, ...

Unit 1: The Food-Energy-Water Connection
Richard D. Schulterbrandt Gragg III, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University; John Warford, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University; Cynthia Hewitt, Morehouse College; Akin Akinyemi, Florida State University; Cheryl Young, Heritage University
This unit is designed to function as three days of instruction in an introductory urban planning, environmental science/studies or public health course.