Intro: post by Wednesday 3/30. Write something about you and your understanding of sustainability. Include a picture of you. Choose the Intro category.
Your post must have a title, one or more categories, and tags. Sample tags (feel free to create your own): agriculture / carbon dioxide / climate change / CO2 / economy / ecosystem / energy / environment / equality / equity / food / global warming / greenhouse gas / health / human society / measuring / population / recycling / renewables / social justice / sustainability / water
Week 1: on numbers, units and measurement related to carbon dioxide. Post by Sunday 4/3; comment by Wednesday 4/6.
Week 2: Water. Here are a few directions. Feel free to explore more. Animal/crop water needs: Give an example of water consumption by one type of livestock or one type of crop. Water waste: Give an example of water waste (in the U.S. or other countries). Make suggestions for reducing water waste and quantify the amount of water that could be saved. Bottled water: Why is bottled water so popular? Estimate the bottled water consumption on Union College campus. Estimate the amount of oil to produce these plastic bottles and to ship the water here. Post by Sunday 4/10; comment by Wednesday 4/13.
Week 3: Quantifying change and understanding growth/decay. Explore your own topics on sustainability. Find examples and make sure to address or calculate the total change, percentage change, increase or decrease, growth factor or decay factor, rate of change, etc. Post by Sunday 4/17; comment by Wednesday 4/20.
Week 4: Mathematics for Planet Earth. You’ve read mathematics and persuasive writing and explored many sustainability concepts. In celebrating Earth Day, choose one topic of sustainability and educate the public mathematics for sustainable development. Useful sources: Earth Day Fun Facts, Earth Day 2022. Feel free to explore more. Post by Sunday 4/24; comment by Wednesday 4/27.
Week 5: Exploring social justice on local or global scales. Include one chart (within recent years) and explain how it reflects the social justice issue. Examples:
- Educational access, funding, testing, achievement gap
- Food insecurity, hunger
- Gender discrimination, gender pay gap
- Health disparities, health care and insurance
- Housing, gentrification, homeownership
- Poverty, minimum/living wage, sweatshops
- Prisons, racial profiling, death penalty
- Privilege, power, social class
- Racism, segregation, stereotyping
- Welfare, civil rights, human rights
Post by Sunday 5/1; comment by Wednesday 5/4.
Week 6: Gather data and create your own graph(s) relevant to sustainability. Explain in details what the graphs represent, show, measure, or tell, and what data are used. Post by Sunday 5/8, comment by Wednesday 5/11.
Week 7: Alternative energy sources. Take one source of non fossil-fuel based energy and discuss it from the (global or local) perspectives of economy (cost), feasibility (how near are we to commercial-level application), energy return on energy invested, plant lifetime, distribution mechanisms, long-term sustainability, and so on. Examples of energy forms:
- Solar photovoltaic
- Solar thermal
- Wind energy
- Wave energy
- Tidal energy
- Hydro-electric
- Nuclear fission
- Nuclear fusion
- Geothermal
- Biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel)
- Wood
Helpful resources: Sustainable Energy (calculations about renewable energy); Do the Math. Post by Sunday 5/15; comment by Wednesday 5/18.
Week 8: Video – My sustainability action (in 30 seconds). This must be your action. Make sure to include in the video mathematical reasoning to support your action. To add a video, click “Add Media” in your post. Include a title to your post. Note that the site does not support the .mov format and has a size limit of 50MB. If your video is mov, please use this online free converter to convert your video to mp4: https://cloudconvert.com/
A few very short videos were posted on the course site to help you get ideas but don’t feel constrained. Post by Sunday 5/22, comment by Wednesday 5/25.
Week 9: Mathematics, Sustainability, and Global Learning. This post can be drawn from your writing. Please do not copy the full text. You may address all three aspects of global learning (global awareness, global perspective, and global engagement) or focus on one. Make sure to include mathematical content. Post by Sunday 5/29, comment by Wednesday 6/1.
