The resource, "About Solar Reference Guide for Students" included in "Lesson 08 Power Resources" is a part of "Unit 05 Green Sustainable Facility Design" included in Energy & Sustainability ES - Course 3

As emissions of heat-trapping bases accumulate in our atmosphere, Earth's polar regions are warming more quickly than at lower latitudes. The rapid environmental changes that result from this warming can have a significant impact on the physical and mental health of rural Alaskans: unpredictable weather and changes in the seasons have made harvesting food more difficult, hazardous, and stressful. The risk of physical injury has also increased, as poor ice, extreme weather, and coastal erosion bring new travel hazards. Increasingly difficult harvest conditions for fish, shellfish, berries, caribou, and sea mammals have also increased concerns about food security. Additionally, declines in snow pack, the threat of drought, changes in lake and river conditions, and damage and disruptions to community water systems have prompted concerns of water security. The climate-related challenge faced by Alaska’s tribal health system is to recognize new health stressors and community vulnerabilities, and then find healthy adaptation strategies in an increasingly uncertain future.

Our human society consists of many intertwined Large Scale Socio-Technical Systems (LSSTS), such as infrastructures, industrial networks, the financial systems etc. Environmental pressures created by these systems on Earth‰ŰŞs carrying capacity are leading to exhaustion of natural resources, loss of habitats and biodiversity, and are causing a resource and climate crisis. To avoid this sustainability crisis, we urgently need to transform our production and consumption patterns. Given that we, as inhabitants of this planet, are part of a complex and integrated global system, where and how should we begin this transformation? And how can we also ensure that our transformation efforts will lead to a sustainable world? LSSTS and the ecosystems that they are embedded in are known to be Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). According to John Holland CAS are "...a dynamic network of many agents (which may represent cells, species, individuals, firms, nations) acting in parallel, constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing. The control of a CAS tends to be highly dispersed and decentralized. If there is to be any coherent behavior in the system, it will have to to arise from competition and cooperation among the agents themselves. The overall behavior of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment" by many individual agents. Understanding Complex Adaptive Systems requires tools that themselves are complex to create and understand. Shalizi defines Agent Based Modeling as "An agent is a persistent thing which has some state we find worth representing, and which interacts with other agents, mutually modifying each other‰ŰŞs states. The components of an agent-based model are a collection of agents and their states, the rules governing the interactions of the agents and the environment within which they live." This course will explore the theory of CAS and their main properties. It will also teach you how to work with Agent Based Models in order to model and understand CAS.

Paul Andersen describes the pros and cons of industrial agriculture including: monocropping, irrigation, and the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and GMOs.

This presentation aims to increase the students’ knowledge about environmental epidemiology, by introducing different study designs used to study health effects of exposure to outdoor air pollution. All study designs are illustrated by examples, starting with the Great Smog (Killer Fog) of London in 1952, one of the landmarks in environmental epidemiology.

Nearly one third of the world’s population are exposed to high levels of indoor air pollution from the household’s use of solid fuel. The fuel is mainly biomass burning under poor combustion conditions
in open fires or primitive stoves and with low ventilation. This costs more than 4 million lives every year and enormous suffering in particular among women and children.

What is air pollution? What is it in the air that is harmful? This lecture focuses on air pollution, where it occur, and how it spread.

In this presentation, we will describe the global levels and trends in major air pollutants and related health burden. Air pollution is an important global risk factor for disease. People who live in more polluted areas develop more often chronic and infectious disease and die prematurely as compared to people living in areas with low air pollution.

In large part of the World, people spend more than 90 percent of the time in indoor environments, where air quality is important for health. The environment outside the building, what goes on inside the building and the exchange of air pollutants affects the indoor air. Tight buildings can reduce energy consumption and entry of outdoor air pollutants, but unless ventilation is right indoor air pollutants from combustion processes, dampness, microbes, the dwellers bio effluents,
appliances, care and cleaning products, clothing, furniture, building materials, the underground and many other sources will build up indoors causing important health effects.

In this presentation, we will discuss how we can know whether one individual is more susceptible to harmful effect of air pollution than others are. Everyone is exposed, but some groups may be more susceptible to the harmful effect of air pollution than others may.

In this lecture, we will describe the mechanisms by which air pollution causes pulmonary health effects in the human population. The pulmonary health effects include exacerbation of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), increased risk of lower
respiratory tracts infections and lung cancer.

In this presentation, we will describe the mechanisms by which air pollution causes health effects in other parts of the body than the lungs. In continuation of this, we will discuss the important mechanisms of extra pulmonary health effect.

There is a long way before the whole world complies with the WHO guidelines for air quality, but the enormous burden of disease from outdoor air pollution forces us to increase action to come as far as possible. In continuation of this, we will discuss what we can do about air pollution at global, international, national, city and individual levels. Most of the actions to reduce air pollution also mitigates climate change and/or promote health in other ways – so there are many win-win and
win-win-win situations

The resource, "C-ROADS Overview Reference" included in "Lesson 2 Modeling Exercise with C-LEARN" is a part of "Unit 10 Mock Summit and Portfolio Capstone Finale" included in Energy & Sustainability ES - Course 4

Paul Andersen explains how the atmosphere surrounds the planet. The state of the atmosphere is climate and is affected by unequal heating, the Coriolis Effect, and the ocean. Convection cells and ENSO are discussed in detail.

The resource, "Battery Sizing Activity Student Handout" included in "Lesson 1 Batteries and Energy Storage" is a part of "Unit 09 Energy Storage" included in Energy & Sustainability ES - Course 3

The resource, "Bill Nye on Wind Video Link" included in "Lesson 1 How to Catch Some Wind" is a part of "Unit 06 Wind Energy" included in Energy & Sustainability ES - Course 1

Have you ever asked what “biobased” means or wondered about the key aspects in developing and commercializing biobased products? This course will answer those questions and more; highlighting the opportunities, hurdles, and driving forces of the bioeconomy.

Today’s industries face enormous global challenges when it comes to the fossil-based economy. Fossil resources are no longer a desirable feedstock for many products and governments’ climate goals put various limitations to its usage. Moreover, consumer perception has become an increasingly important factor. With biobased products as an alternative to the fossil-based economy, the bioeconomy can provide viable solutions to these challenges.

The course describes the different types of biomass, the methods of refinery and typical conversion technologies used for biobased products. You’ll also engage in a study of the practical and real-life examples emerging in the market: biopolymers, bioenergy, bioflavours, and biosurfactants.

The course has been developed by a team of experts from seven different institutions and universities in three different countries, all sharing their personal perspectives on the opportunities and challenges faced by the biobased industry. The three top-ranked institutions Delft University of Technology, RWTH Aachen University, and Wageningen University & Research offer additional, more advanced courses to continue your learning journey:

Industrial Biotechnology: a more advanced course that digs deeper into engineering aspects of bio-based products.
MicroMasters Chemistry and Technology for Sustainability: Help drive the transition from fossil sources to renewable energy ones and engineer a biobased future.
Sustainable Development: The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Introduction to sustainable development and its relation to the Water-Energy-Food Nexus.

Paul Andersen explains how biogeochemical cycles move required nutrients through the abiotic and biotic spheres on our planet. Matter on the Earth is conserved so producers must receive required nutrients through the water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorus cycle, and sulfur cycle.

This video describes black carbon, or soot, and its effect on the atmosphere and sea ice. The resource, "Black Carbon on Iced- NOAA" included in "Lesson 3 Black Ice" is a part of "Unit 03 Challenges to Safe Operating Space" included in Energy & Sustainability ES - Course 2