Climate Action Hands-On: Harnessing Science with Communities to Cut Carbon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology via MIT OpenCourseWare
Overview
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This course explores how citizen science can support community actions to combat climate change. Participants will learn about framing problems, design ways to gather data, gather some of their own field data, and consider how the results can enable action. Leaks in the natural gas system—a major source of methane emissions, and a powerful contributor to climate change—will be a particular focus.
The course was organized by {{% resource_link "bd4d45ca-f258-4ce0-9250-c693358347a7" "ClimateX" %}} and {{% resource_link "19ad58e3-2005-4dee-bb2b-21c1fb317ecc" "Fossil Free MIT" %}}, with support from the National Science Foundation for the methane monitoring equipment. It was offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week January term at MIT.
Syllabus
- Session 1.1: Climate Science Meets Community Science
- Session 1.2: Stories from the Field: Methane Leaks
- Session 2.1: More About Methane Leaks
- Session 2.2: Methane Leak Measurement Hackathon
- Session 3: Methane Leak Field Trip "Safari"
- Session 4.1: Environmental Legal Action, Scientific Evidence and Citizen Data
- Session 4.2: Fixing the Carbon Footprint
- Session 4.3: Debrief on Methane Leak Safari
Taught by
David Damm-Luhr, Rajesh Kasturirangan, Zeyneb Magavi, Chris Nidel, Nathan Phillips, Audrey Schulman, Britta Voss, Jeff Warren, and Ory Zik