Monday, April 9, 2012

New Climate Change Textbook for fall

After much searching, I finally found the perfect textbook for my two sections of MTR 1600 Global Climate Change that I will teach in the fall.  John Houghton was co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report and summarizes their findings in a very accessible way in this colorful, figure-filled book.  I'm looking forward to spending some time this summer revamping this course for the fourth time, although I think this current semester's class is going extremely well thanks to a really bright group of students.  This fall I'm teaching a First Year Success section of this class MW 11:00 and a regular section open to anyone MW at 9:30.  The First Year students will benefit from hitting two birds with one stone by taking this class; it fulfills both the natural science requirement and the global diversity requirement that 2012 catalog students will have to fulfill before graduating.  Other catalog year students will still get a natural science general studies requirement out of it!

MTR 1600 Description: This course presents the science behind global climate change from an Earth systems and atmospheric science perspective. These concepts then provide the basis to explore the effect of global warming on regions throughout the world.  This leads to the analysis of the observed and predicted impacts of climate change on these regions; the effect of these changes on each region's society, culture, and economy; and the efforts of these regions to mitigate or adapt to climate change. The interdependence of all nations will be discussed in regards to fossil fuel-rich regions, regions responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, and regions most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. 3 credits. (General Studies: Natural and Physical Science, Global Diversity requirements)