Understanding and Communicating About a Changing Environment

Catalog description

This co-taught course is designed for STEM majors who want to improve their science communication skills and for non-STEM majors who want to develop a richer understanding of critical atmospheric and environmental topics in today’s changing climate. The course will be structured around four important environmental phenomena such as air quality, fire weather, hurricanes, and climate change. Students will learn about the underlying physical and natural processes for each of these topics, and will learn the best practices for how to most effectively communicate about the topic to a range of audiences including the general public, policy-makers, and family and friends. The course will also teach students the fundamentals of media literacy for scientific topics and how to find scientifically correct information for topics beyond those focused on in the course.