Lessons & Activities Search
Title |
MIT Course | Preview | Type of Activity | Instructional Approach | Content Area | SDG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research Paper | People and Other Animals |
A research paper relating to topics discussed in class will be the main assignment focus throughout the course [for people and other animals]. Undergraduate students must write a paper of a minimum of 12 pages, while graduate students have a minimum length of 25 pages. |
Paper | Other | People and Animals | SDG 15 - Life on Land |
| Reflection Papers (Ethics in your Life) | Ethics In Your Life: Being Thinking Doing (or Not?) |
Students are required to submit three short (roughly 250–300 word) reflection papers over the course of the term in response to the outside events* you attend. |
Field Trip, Paper | Experiential Learning | Social Studies | SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals |
| Reaction Papers | Environmental Conflict |
Students are responsible for writing a 1–2 page reaction paper based on the readings (or another assigned topic) for each week's class for a total of eight reaction papers. Papers are due in the class for which the reading is assigned. Reaction papers are your personal response to the week's readings. These papers should offer an overview of the main points of the book or articles under consideration. It should also include your own assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of these readings and, if possible, should link the reading at hand to other readings from the course or topics discussed in class.
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Paper | Other | Anthropology | SDG 13 - Climate Action |
| Re-Designing Massachusetts Avenue (Assignment 2) | Urban Transportation and Planning |
The Cambridge Director of Transportation has asked you, his trusted advisor, to help him plan his strategy with respect to current issues regarding Massachusetts Avenue between Central Square and the Harvard Bridge. For this assignment, you will have access to the counting reports of the teams at three intersections and locations along Mass. Ave. You should walk and observe, and use the first several steps of the 19 step process as part of your background work in preparing to write the assignment. Pay explicit attention to the first step: "who are you?" and how this impacts the advice you give. |
Redesign | Place-Based Learning | Urban Studies | SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities & Communities |
| Quiz 2 | D-Lab I: Development |
This is a quiz, with open-ended questions from D-Lab I: Development. |
Exam | Other | Development | SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure |
| Public Participation and Group Decision-Making | Introduction to Environmental Policy and Planning |
There is an ongoing debate between political philosophers and dispute resolution professionals regarding the most appropriate means of conceptualizing the public interest (with regards to the use of natural resources or patterns of urban development). The philosophers believe "deliberative polling" that provides a snapshot of what the "average citizen" prefers should be sufficient for elected officials to determine what actions to take in the public interest. Dispute resolution professionals argue the public interest can best be understood as the product of a consensus building dialogue among contending interests (not individuals) and that public officials armed with polling data can never know or produce on their own the public interest. |
Paper | Other | Urban Studies | SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities & Communities |
| Project of Change or Research Paper | Environmental Justice Law and Policy |
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.
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Group Presentation | Collaborative, Small Group Learning | Environmental Law, Policy | SDG 16 - Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions |
| Project 4: General Circulation | Weather and Climate Laboratory |
In this final project, we draw together some of the ideas explored in Projects 1, 2, and 3 and apply them to study, using atmospheric data and a rotating annulus, aspects of the general circulation of the atmosphere.
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Oral Presentation, Report | Inquiry-Based Learning | Climate | SDG 15 - Life on Land |
| Project 3: Convection | Weather and Climate Laboratory |
In this project we enquire into the nature of the convective process. We will simulate convection in the laboratory using a tank of water with a heating pad at its base and study convection in the atmosphere using thermodynamic diagrams.
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Oral Presentation, Report | Inquiry-Based Learning | Climate | SDG 15 - Life on Land |
| Project 2: Fronts | Weather and Climate Laboratory |
In this project, we inspect fronts crossing the country associated with day-to-day variations in the weather using real-time atmospheric observations. In the laboratory we create fronts by allowing salty (and hence dense) columns of water to collapse under rotation and gravity. We discover that the observed changes in winds and temperature across our laboratory and atmospheric fronts is consistent with Margule’s formula (a discrete form of the thermal wind equation) and see that the dynamical balance at work in the atmosphere is the same as in the density fronts created in the rotating tank.
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Oral Presentation, Report | Inquiry-Based Learning | Climate | SDG 15 - Life on Land |