From global warming to surveillance of citizens to health-care reform, issues in science, technology, and medicine are also political issues. This course uses contemporary scientific controversies to explore the intersections of science and politics. Issues explored may include the role of the military and private sector in funding research, the politics of experts and expertise, computer privacy and national security, and environmental politics.

Catalog Distribution: (SSC-AS) (SBA-AG)

Full details for STS 1101 - Science, Technology, and Politics

When you think of climate change, what do you see? Do you picture images of polar bears or of displaced peoples? Do you imagine politicians in pressed suits or scientists in lab coats? Each of these images helps to tell a story about climate change: why do you think some stand out more urgently than others? This class will help us to answer this question - but it will not stop there. We will listen to the various voices that narrate the stakes of climate change to the public: scientists, politicians, journalists, creative writers. Although we may discuss the rhetoric of dissenters, we will focus on the consensus of people who agree that climate change is inflected by human behaviors and industry, and we will consider the role of writing in conveying the stakes of this global issue to different audiences. We will ask: What stories do people tell about climate change, and why? Do some stories have a greater effect than others? What kind of political work can climate change stories do? And, most importantly, what kind of stories can we write?

Full details for STS 1105 - Climate (you can) Change

Evolution is the central concept in biology. This course examines evolution as a science and places it in a historical context. Course focuses on descent with modification, the nature of natural selection, the history of the earth, the information content of the fossil record, and processes responsible for diversification (speciation and extinction). The science of evolutionary biology is presented in the context of a broader history of ideas in science. The course also explores the importance of evolutionary thinking in the 21st century, including discussion of antibiotic and pesticide resistance, personalized genomics, eugenics, and climate change. This course is suitable for life sciences majors. 

Catalog Distribution: (BIO-AS) (BIO-AG, OPHLS-AG)

Full details for STS 1180 - Evolution

A course in the social history of medicine that examines the ways in which medicine and its practitioners have impacted-and been impacted by-American social, political, cultural, and economic development. The course focuses on the changing nature of disease, the medical profession past and present as well as historical and contemporary issues in public health.

Full details for STS 1451 - Body, Mind, and Health: Historical Perspectives for Future Professionals

Environmental problems, public health issues, scientific research-in each of these areas, communication plays a fundamental role. From the media to individual conversations, from technical journals to textbooks, from lab notes to the web, communication helps define scientifically based social issues and research findings. This course examines the institutional and intellectual contexts, processes, and practical constraints on communication in the sciences.

Catalog Distribution: (SSC-AS) (SBA-AG)

Full details for STS 2851 - Communication, Environment, Science, and Health

Humans have fraught relationships with the animals, plants, land, water—even geological processes—around us. In this course, we will examine how people make and respond to environmental change and how groups of people form, express, struggle over, and work out environmental concerns. We will probe how environmental injustices, demographic change, economic activity, government action, social movements, and varied ways of thinking shape human-environmental relationships. Through our conversations, we will explore possibilities for durable ways of living together in our social and material world. Our goal in this course is to give you knowledge, analytical tools, and expressive skills that help you feel confident to address environmental concerns as a social scientist and a citizen.

Catalog Distribution: (SSC-AS) (SBA-AG)

Full details for STS 3241 - Environmental Sociology