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Courses for January Term 2009
STS 200 (Section 3): The Ethics, Protocols and Practices of International Research [3]
Cross listed as EVSC 105
Robert J. Swap, Research Associate Professor
Prerequisite: at least one general science course.
What are the ethics and protocols of conducting international research? And how faithfully does the actual practice of such research reflect these protocols and standards of ethics? How should students and scholars work to establish research partnerships that bring sustained benefits to the environment and to the people who inhabit the site of a given project? How can international research consortia establish a basis for community service and development? What are the ethical obligations of contemporary researchers and students who visit developing countries, especially in the light of contemporary researchers and students who visit developing countries, especially in the light of legacy of colonialism? Through an intense combination of readings, discussions, guest presentations, and group projects, students will address all these questions. The class will be facilitated by the lead instructors with the active participation of a delegation of scholars from southern Africa; in addition the class will also have distinguished guest instructors from the university and the wider scholarly community. Drawing on all these resources, students working in autonomous small groups, will design a potential research project of their own and present it to the entire group.
STS 200(Section 4): Science, Intention, and Ethics: Copenhagen September 1941 [3]
Patricia Click, Professor
This course will explore various relationships among modern science, technology, society, and ethics by focusing intently on the mysterious September 1941 visit of German physicist Werner Heisenberg to his former mentor, the half-Jewish Niels Bohr, in occupied Copenhagen. One pivotal conversation, which ended abruptly, apparently touched on the ethics of working on atomic bombs. Heisenberg returned to Germany, where he helped to lead the German nuclear program. Two years later, Bohr fled to Sweden and then to the U.S., where he joined Allied scientists working at Los Alamos. After the war, Heisenberg and Bohr attempted unsuccessfully to clarify what they had discussed at the Copenhagen meeting. Since that time, historians and scientists have also debated the subject. Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, a critically acclaimed play,has renewed interest in the topic and led to even more scholarly articles and the early release of some letters from the Niels Bohr Archive. Although the course will focus on the September 1941 meeting, it will also include an overview of the history of theoretical physics in the period prior to World War II, as well as an overview of the history of nuclear armaments in the postwar period. Course materials will include Frayn’s Copenhagen, scholarly essays on the subject, primary source material (including some taped interviews), and the video of the BBC’s production of Frayn’s Copenhagen. In addition to mastering the thematic content of the course, students will have numerous opportunities to improve listening, analytical, writing, and oral presentation skills. The culminating experience for the course will be team research projects (substantial team-written research papers and team presentations).
STS 214: Earth Systems Technology and Management [3]
Cross listed as EVSC 107
Michael Gorman, Professor
Primary audience is engineering and environmental science, but others with
an interest in systems management and improving the planet are welcome.
Engineering students can use this to fulfill a communications and
science-technology studies requirement.
Earth Systems Engineering Management (ESEM) is a comprehensive perspective
that combines engineering, environmental science and psychology to explore
how human beings can take care of the ecosystem. Students will listen to
lectures and discuss background readings from a variety of perspectives
related to ESEM. Then they will go on a on a field trip. The final several days of class will be devoted to students' own ESEM projects on topics like nanotechnology and the environment, or managing the Everglades.
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