• Blended Learning & Flipped Classroom

Aim of the course is to discuss from the perspective of sustainable development the great environmental, economic and social challenges that humanity is facing in the contemporary era. The verb "discuss" is utilized deliberately to emphasize the interactive mode used throughout the course. Each and all of the problems are treated up to a global (planetary) scale and over long (from decennial to secular or even millennial) temporal scales. Particular attention is given to climate change and its consequences along many directions claiming for sustainable solutions, from agricultural and ecological dynamics to human and Earth health. Given the high level of complexity of the proposed issues, no univocal solutions are provided. Rather, the active research performed by the students during group work, based on the most up-to-date literature and under the guidance of instructors, will let them deepen both the knowledge and the understanding about some specific, elective topics.

The specific learning skills acquired by the students are

• Knowledge and understanding of the most important global changes that require the design of a sustainable path toward development, with particular and special focus on climate change. These include economic issues (indicators others than GDP, inequalities and poverty, the possibility of development without growth), environmental issues (such as biodiversity conservation, resources availability and urban resilience) and social issues (such as education and health). In particular, the scales of reasoning in students' mind are widened by the large geopolitical and the long temporal scales that are considered in the course.
• Ability of contextualizing and applying the concepts and tools learned to specific problems, going beyond the single-issue simplistic view of sustainable development that is typical of basic courses on the subject.
• Capacity of autonomously navigating through the pertinent, up-to-date international literature so as to argument pros and cons of potential solutions to specific problems.
• Group work attitude in preparing a short report and a dissertation to be presented to (and defended with) the whole class (communication skills).

The course consists of two modules. The first module is specifically focused on Climate change, while the other is mainly devoted to implications of global changes to sustainable development. The two modules are not delivered sequentially, but in parallel because their contents are not separated but intertwined. Climate change is in fact seen here as one of the major global challenges to be faced by humanity in the present era.

Topics of the first module (Climate change) are the following:

1. Introduction to global environmental change: Understanding environmental change, Historical approaches to environmental change, Current approaches to environmental change, Contemporary patterns of global environmental change
2. The Earth system - The climate system (radiation and radiative balance- the equilibrium temperature of a planet)
3. Natural climate change and the ice ages: Milankovich theory.  Climate dynamics and the general circulation of the atmosphere
4. Natural and anthropogenic climate drivers
5. Deep Decarbonization Pathway Planning and Mid-Century Strategies- The Three Pillars of Decarbonization
6. GCM scenarios - Downscaling methods for Climate change impacts evaluation

The second module of the course (Sustainable Development) is delivered using the flipped class methodology. Video-lectures are taken from the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) entitled "The Age of Sustainable Development" by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University), freely available on Coursera. Each week, the students are requested to watch one video and/or study one chapter of the course book, so as to be ready for discussion during the class.

Lectures of the second module (Sustainable development) are

1. Introduction to sustainable development
2. An unequal world
3. A brief history of economic development
4. Why some countries developed while others stayed poor
5. Ending extreme poverty
6. Planetary boundaries
7. Social inclusion
8. Education for all
9. Health for all
10. Food security
11. Resilient cities
12. Saving biodiversity and protecting ecosystem services
13. Sustainable development goals

Basic concepts of physics, specifically mechanics and thermodynamics, are needed. Also, some undegraduate level knowledge on economics, ecology and hydrology would be beneficial to speed up the learning process. All necessary notions will be briefly recalled during the course where needed.

The exam consists of two parts: an oral presentation and discussion (group work) and a written test (individual work). During the course, the students will be organized in groups (tentatively of three people). A list of topics of interest, as emerging from discussion during each lecture, will be proposed at the beginning of the subsequent class. The group will perform a research on the selected topics based on the available literature, will write a small report (Science or Nature style, max 3 pages) and organize a talk (tentatively 15 minutes). The quality of the work done and the ability of the group to keep the class discussion vivid and alive is part of the evaluation. The written test will instead be performed individually and consists in answering questions and/or solving simple exercises so as to prove the familiarity of the student with the topics of the course.