Science & Technology in Society

How Music Works: Engineering the Acoustical World (Gen Ed 1080)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024

Music and technology are two dimensions of humanity that have been interdependent for tens of thousands of years; what can this intersection teach us about our past and our future?

 

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Robert Wood

How does Shazam know what song is playing? Why do some rooms have better acoustics than others? How and why do singers harmonize? Do high-end musical instruments sound better than cheap ones? How do electronic synthesizers work? What processes are common in designing a device and composing a piece of music? How is music stored and manipulated in a digital form? This class explores these and related themes in an accessible way for all concentrators, regardless of technical background.... Read more about How Music Works: Engineering the Acoustical World (Gen Ed 1080)

Human Nature (Gen Ed 1056)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024

What makes us human and why does it matter?

 

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Joseph Henrich

What makes us psychologically and behaviorally human? Why is this important? In what ways are humans similar to other species, and how are we different? What are the evolutionary origins of the behavioral and psychological features found across human societies, including parental love, sibling rivalry, pair-bonding, incest aversion, social status, war, norms, altruism, religion, language and cooking?... Read more about Human Nature (Gen Ed 1056)

How to Build a Habitable Planet (Gen Ed 1018)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024

The relationship between human beings and Earth is the central problem of our time; can an understanding of Earth’s history reveal a place for us in a process of planetary evolution that might influence our behavior?

 

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Charles H. Langmuir

Poster for Gen Ed 1018 - How to Build a Habitable Planet. Includes images of earth as well as a construction worker. Text describes course.

Is Earth one of many planets in an inhabited Universe, or is it the result of a low-probability accident? And what does the answer to that question tell us about humans’ relationship to our planet? The aim of this course is to place human beings in a universal and planetary context as we investigate the steps of planetary evolution and their significance to our current relationship to Earth.... Read more about How to Build a Habitable Planet (Gen Ed 1018)

Can We Know Our Past? (Gen Ed 1105)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024

In a time when histories are being contested, monuments removed, and alternative facts compete with established orthodoxy, how do we evaluate competing narratives about what really happened in the past?

 

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Jason Ur and Solsire Cusicanqui Marsano

What happened in the past? How do you know? Even though today we take great pains to document every major event that occurs, more than 99% of human history is not written down.... Read more about Can We Know Our Past? (Gen Ed 1105)

Finding Our Way (Gen Ed 1031)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024


How did/do humans find their way across the planet, and how can we replicate their wayfinding?
 

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John Huth

Imagine a situation where modern technology vanishes. How would you find your way around? We can look back in time at Pacific Islanders or the Norse and see how they engaged in wayfinding, using the Sun and stars as guides. In this course, we’ll explore time-honored techniques of navigation, and examine how they functioned.... Read more about Finding Our Way (Gen Ed 1031)

Confronting Climate Change: A Foundation in Science, Technology and Policy (Gen Ed 1094)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024

How can we address the issue of climate change, reducing the damages by preparing for impacts already underway and fixing the problem by transforming our energy system?

 

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Daniel Schrag

This course will consider the challenge of climate change and what to do about it.   Students will be introduced to the basic science of climate change, including the radiation budget of the Earth, the carbon cycle, and the physics and chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere.... Read more about Confronting Climate Change: A Foundation in Science, Technology and Policy (Gen Ed 1094)

Natural Disasters (Gen Ed 1098)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2024

What makes our planet so dangerous?

 

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Brendan Meade

Poster for Gen Ed 1098 - Natural Disasters. Image is a satellite photograph of a hurricane. Text includes course time (Tuesday & Thursday, 10:30-1145am) and location (Haller Hall, Geology Museum).

From Mexico to India, San Francisco to Tokyo, natural disasters have shaped both the surface of our planet and the development of civilizations. These catastrophes claim thousands of lives and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage each year, and the impact of natural disasters is only increasing as a result of human population growth and urbanization. This course uses the methods and skills associated with earth science to help you to develop an understanding of both the causes and impacts of these events.... Read more about Natural Disasters (Gen Ed 1098)

Sound and Music Perception (Gen Ed 1106)

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2024

 

Our whole life experience must pass through our sensory systems; are we getting the truth or are we being deliberately misled, and if so, to what purpose?

 

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Eric Heller

Humans perceive sound in amazing and sometimes mysterious ways. This is exploited in many audio experiences and technologies. Using readily available laptops, audio devices, sound sources, and software, students will explore their own and classmates' sound and music perception, including accessible and original collaborative research projects.... Read more about Sound and Music Perception (Gen Ed 1106)

Artificial and Natural Intelligence (Gen Ed 1125)

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2024

What does it mean for a machine to be intelligent, how does current artificial intelligence compare with animal intelligence, and should we be worried?

 

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Venkatesh Murthy

What is intelligence? An inquiry into the nature of intelligence can take different forms – philosophical, biological, mathematical or technological. In this course, we will use machine intelligence (everything from voice recognizing smartphones to game-playing computers) as a handle to think about natural intelligence (brains and behavior of animals). Although we will start with big, general questions, we will quickly move to concrete queries about brains and computers.... Read more about Artificial and Natural Intelligence (Gen Ed 1125)

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cares? Reimagining Global Health (Gen Ed 1093)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2023

How can health care systems be restructured to provide high quality care even to the poorest and most vulnerable people on our planet?
 

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Arthur Kleinman, Anne Becker, and Salmaan Keshavjee

Photo of people around truck

If you are sick or hurt, whether you live or die depends not only on biological factors, but social ones: who you are and where you are, what sort of healthcare system is available to help you survive, what kind of care is available to help you recover, and whether society believes you deserve it. Recent pandemics have illustrated with dramatic urgency the role social forces play in patterning health inequities and determining individual fates.... Read more about Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cares? Reimagining Global Health (Gen Ed 1093)

Infectious Diseases, Pandemics, and Social Injustice (Gen Ed 1129)

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2023

Could we have been better prepared to mitigate the inequitable impact of COVID-19 in the US and globally had we learned the social injustice lessons from previous pandemics and epidemics of the diseases we will study?

 

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Donald Goldmann

Amazing scientific and public health advances have transformed our understanding, prevention, and treatment of infectious diseases—discoveries so profound that they were unimaginable even a generation ago. Yet the global burden of infections remains prodigious, disproportionately affecting low-income countries and vulnerable populations in the United States and other developed economies. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare these stark inequities.... Read more about Infectious Diseases, Pandemics, and Social Injustice (Gen Ed 1129)

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