Environmental Literacy at MIT

These are summaries of short presentations made by FENS members during the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 academic years. Faculty were asked to describe a concept or method they believe every environmentally literate MIT graduate should know about. For more information, contact the faculty presenters directly. FENS expects to expand this list and develop these online materials in 2009-2010.



Sterkfontein Dam

The MIT Faculty Environmental Network for Sustainability (FENS) spent the 2008–2009 academic year exploring what an "environmentally literate graduate of MIT ought to know." We asked faculty members from a range of departments to identify key concepts or methods with which they think every MIT graduate ought to be familiar.

Climate sensitivity, extinction, energy intensity, environmental justice, disease clusters, human and natural activities that force climate change, law and economics as competing paradigms, the use of decision-support simulations, and the role of nuclear power are just some of the concepts that were nominated. At the present time, very few MIT undergraduates are introduced to these ideas and methods in their studies. Even those students who are passionately interested in them, find it difficult to piece together an interdisciplinary program that will guarantee that they achieve environmental literacy.