[bioundgrd] FW: ESG spring seminars

Tue Dec 3 11:59:17 EST 2019

Begin forwarded message:

From: Paola Rebusco <pao at mit.edu<mailto:pao at mit.edu>>
Subject: ESG spring seminars
Date: December 2, 2019 at 9:36:01 PM EST

Hello!
ESG is sponsoring a number of innovative seminars. These seminars (listed below) are designed to be highly interactive, hands-on, and based on material not typically found in standard MIT classes. Could you please help us in advertizing them?

Best regards,
Paola

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Spring 2020  ESG Seminar series (3, 6 and 9 units pass/fail). All seminars are open to all MIT and Wellesley students.

These seminars are designed to be highly interactive, hands-on, and based on material not typically found in standard MIT classes.
For more information about each seminar, contact the instructors (emails below) and the ESG website http://esg.mit.edu/learninginnovation/undergraduate-seminars/.

  *   ES.010 “Chemistry of Sports”

  *   ES.S10 “Food security”

  *   ES.S20 “Python and ES.1803”

  *   ES.S30 “Airplanes and Airlines”

  *   ES.S40“Why can’t we all get along?”

  *   ES.S70 “Where is everybody?Arguments For and Against the Existence of Extraterrestrial Civilizations"

  *   ES.S71 “How to get off the struggle bus”

  *   ES.S91 “Building the Beloved Community: The Ethics of Public Life”

  *   ES.92 “Authenticity”

ES.010 “Chemistry of Sports”
Want to learn what happens to your body when you exercise? This seminar explores how to apply science to improve your level of physical fitness. You will be required to participate in an exercise program during the term and at the end, we will do a sprint triathlon.

Instructors: Patti Christie (patti at mit.edu<mailto:patti at mit.edu>) and Steve Lyons, T 3-5pm, 6 units

 ES.S10 “The Future of Food Security”
By 2050, food production must increase by 50% to accommodate population growth and changing diets. This seminar covers the issues in sustainability that will affect our increasing food production, including GMOs, food waste, pesticide use, water security, and conservation. Using a hands-on approach that emphasizes policy concerns and technological problem-solving, we will investigate how to address these sustainability issues on an individual and a societal scale.

Instructor: Azzo Séguin (iseguin at mit.edu<mailto:iseguin at mit.edu>), T 7-9 pm, 6 units

ES.S20 “Python and ES.1803”
"Science is knowledge that we know so well that we can teach it to a computer" (Donald Knuth)

ES.S20 is the 1803 python seminar. It is designed to use programming to enhance learning differential equations and differential equations to learn some programming. No programming experience is required. We'll start from the beginning and cover enough to do some fun graphical and computational projects. Those with more experience can help teach the beginners.It's open to anyone who has taken or is currently enrolled in ES.1803 or 18.03.

Instructor: Jeremy Orloff (jorloff at mit.edu<mailto:jorloff at mit.edu>), F 12-1,  3 units

 ES.S30 “Airplanes and Airlines”
How much do you know about the airplane you’re flying on? How does it fly and what do pilots really do? How do airlines operate and what drives the aircraft market? Gain insight into aerospace industry product development and build engineering intuition by tinkering with toy airplanes. Come explore the future of travel and transportation!

Instructor: Dongjoon Lee(dongjoon at mit.edu<mailto:dongjoon at mit.edu>), T10-12, 6 units

ES.S40 “Why can’t we all get along?”
Indeed, why can’t we all just get along? Why do people fight with each other in situations where it makes absolutely no sense? Why do we still have war, poverty, and other social ills, despite the fact that no one wants these things? Are they inevitable? It is just human nature? Why do these problems remain so difficult, despite all the other advances society is making?
This “big think” course will ask fundamental questions about the nature of science, psychology, economics and politics, through the lens of understanding the tradeoff between competition and cooperation. We will study mathematical models of this tradeoff, like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and connect with evolutionary theory. We will examine the psychology of motivation, and optimism vs. pessimism about the “human nature” debate.

The thesis is that technological change increases the value of cooperation and decreases the value of competition. This gives us an unprecedented opportunity to redesign our institutions so that they cooperate rather than compete with their constituents. The key advances of artificial intelligence and personal manufacturing (3D printers) will soon make it possible to end the material scarcity that prevents us from developing the culture of empathy, cooperation, and rationality that we need for the future. We will examine alternative designs (and welcome yours!) for the economy, government, education and justice systems.  Come save the world with us!
For more information, see http://www.whycantwe.org/

Instructors: Henry Lieberman (lieber at media.mit.edu<mailto:lieber at media.mit.edu>) and Christopher Fry (cfry at media.mit.edu<mailto:cfry at media.mit.edu>), MW 3-4:30p, 9 units

ES.S70 “WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Arguments For and Against the Existence of Extraterrestrial Civilizations”
For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether there are other worlds, and whether they might also be home to intelligent beings. But it wasn't until 1950 that physicist Enrico Fermi put the question concisely: "Where is everybody?" Meaning: if there are other high-tech civilizations, there's been plenty of time since the formation of the Milky Way for them to colonize the entire galaxy, so why haven't we detected them? We’ll attempt to come to grips with this question, drawing on arguments from astrophysics, planetary science, biology, anthropology, history, science fiction, and many other fields.
Instructors: Wade Roush (wade.roush at gmail.com<mailto:wade.roush at gmail.com>) and Paola Rebusco (pao at mit.edu<mailto:pao at mit.edu>), F 2-4 pm, 3 units, ends week 6
ES.S71 “How to get off the struggle bus”
Free yourself from friction. Using the latest research in neuroscience, chronobiology, and physiology, learn how to get off the struggle bus and achieve peak experiences as individuals and teams. This class will teach you practices to thrive at MIT, in the workplace, and throughout life.

Instructor:  Carter Jernigan (carterj at mit.edu<mailto:carterj at mit.edu>), W 7-9p, 6 units

ES.S91 “Building the Beloved Community: The Ethics of Public Life”

What do we owe to each other? In this applied ethics course, students will be asked to deeply consider the real-world application of a range of moral and philosophical principles. This course will be held as an inside-out class, bringing together a cohort of MIT students and a cohort of incarcerated students in a minimum-security prison facility, the Boston Pre-Release Center in Roslindale, MA.
Instructors: Thea Keith-Lucas theakl at mit.edu<mailto:theakl at mit.edu> and Shannon Schmidt shannonnoelani at gmail.com<mailto:shannonnoelani at gmail.com>, M 6-8p , 6 units

ES.92 “Authenticity”

 We will explore the question of how to live an authentic life, through works of western and eastern philosophy and contemporary psychology.  Topics include emotions, anger, honesty, forgiveness, non-violent communication, conflict resolution, kindness and cruelty and compassion. This class takes place in a correctional facility in Massachusetts.  Half of the students will be incarcerated men or women pursuing college education in prison.

Instructor: Lee Perlman perlman at MIT.EDU<mailto:perlman at MIT.EDU>, Schedule TBA

--

Paola Rebusco, Ph.D.

Physics Lecturer

MIT - Experimental Study Group

Phone: 617-324-7773

http://www.mit.edu/~pao/

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