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This website features work from the completion of Phase 1 of the SCALES Project.

We are currently seeking partnerships for Phase 2.

Undergraduate

  • Select a Site

    In 2016, MIT will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its move from Boston's Back Bay to the current location in Cambridge. To honor that occasion, this year the class will focus on MIT's former and current neighborhoods, so you should select a site within the designated boundaries in Cambridge or the Back Bay. The site should be between four and eight blocks. Ideally, it should include more than one type of land use. And it should be a place that intrigues you. Reflect on why it interests you, why you are drawn to it. What questions does the place raise, for which you hope to find answers this semester?

    Read more: Select a Site

  • Journals

    In many fields, the journal (or sketchbook, field notebook, or lab book) is an important aid both to the process of research and discovery, and to the documentation of that process and its product, the findings, in more formal papers or books.

    Your journal is a place to begin puzzling out some of the ideas that you will explore further in each of four assignments: Select A Site; Natural Processes; Change Over Time; and Traces and Trends. The first step in preparing to write the journal is to read the guide for that assignment: to familiarize yourself with what the assignment is asking you to do; to figure out what kind of background information and evidence you will need to accomplish that task. You will gather that information and evidence in class discussion, in the required readings, and on field trips.

    Read more: Journals

  • Final Project: Essay & Digital Communications Project

    • Choose a problem that is useful to show what you have learned in this class. Nexus approach? Social or political dimensions of technology? Social histories of institutions, policy entrepreneurs, or bilateral activists? socioecological impacts of production/consumption systems?
    • Pay attention to what problem/theme/topic might be professionally useful for you in the future. Something that you can show you have researched in the past? Something that could serve as the first exploration for a future research or project?
    Read more: Final Project: Essay & Digital Communications Project

  • Paper 2: Providing Expert Advice

    Wakanda's president recently created an interagency commission to address the challenges and opportunities in developing a policy framework of this nature. The interagency commission has called for a group of experts including: industrial leaders, worker's unions, local communities, scientists, social scientists, policy scholars, and foreign experts on comparative environmental governance.

    You are one of the members of this last group. Your job is to advise how to better discuss, design, and implement a policy framework considering ecological, social, economic, and political aspects.

    Read more: Paper 2: Providing Expert Advice

  • Paper 1

    Please write an essay addressing ONE of the following questions. Your essay should be between 1000 and 1500 words. Please also consider:

    • For this essay, you should use (discuss, reference, quote) at least 5 of the readings from session 1–5.
    • While developing your argument include the analysis of 2–3 case studies (countries/environmental conflicts/regions).
    • You should bring a draft (printed copy of at least 700 words) to session 6.
    • A complete draft (100-1500 words) should be submitted (printed copy) on session 7. This draft is part of your final grade.
    Read more: Paper 1

  • Project of Change or Research Paper

    Beginning in week four, students should form groups of not more than four students to work collaboratively on either 1) a final research paper or 2) a proposal for a project that responds to a contemporary issue in environmental justice. The project of change or research paper may be designed in collaboration with a local public agency or community-based organization, or by the team without outside consultation.

    Read more: Project of Change or Research Paper

  • Current Event Facilitation

    On the first day of class, each student will sign up for one week of the course’s readings that are of interest, to relate the day’s readings to a current event and to facilitate a 20-minute discussion about the assigned material.

    Read more: Current Event Facilitation

  • Weekly Response Papers

    Each student will write brief weekly response papers of not more than 500 words each (35%). These should present a critical assessment of the assigned material and not a mere restatement of content (link to class readings). The responses give you an opportunity to analyze key ideas that cut across readings, identify questions the readings prompt you to ask, suggest critiques of the data, methodology, or conclusions, or raise concepts you want to clarify.

    Read more: Weekly Response Papers

  • Ocean and Climate

    Problem set focused on paleoclimate from the course Climate Physics and Chemistry.

    Read more: Ocean and Climate

  • Essay 3

    Your third essay, like the second essay, should explore a question or problem that has emerged from your reading. You may not be able to arrive at an answer or a solution, but over the course of your essay, you should at least be able to refine the central question or identify a range of solutions for your problem. By the end of your third essay, your readers should be able to see what they have gained by exploring this question or problem with you. Stay close to the texts as you explore your chosen issue. Do not wander through the theoretical stratosphere.

    Read more: Essay 3

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Feedback and any actions taken with regards to the feedback, will be shared as they are addressed.