Understanding Quantitatively Environmentally Important Aspects of Society and Science

This course deals with important topics related to environmental change, climate, energy and society. The course will comprise ca. 4 introductory seminars on the topics of energy, resources and emission.
Similar to a core course project, the students will work together on research in an environmental-related topic. In the first edition (2023-24) the topic was travel (train, air travel, travel data of ISTA), and its results were presented in an institute colloquium in spring 2024. In this second edition we will change the topic, while keeping a similar format. While we are open to several topics, and the exact topic will be discussed with the student group during the first 2 weeks, we propose to study what is the energy/resource consumption and carbon footprint related to electrical mobility.

The students will choose the topic together and will work on quantifying scientifically and in an interdisciplinary manner the important parameters. The goal is to build knowledge from real data, based on actual physical insight of the problem at hand. The students will search for scientific literature and other available sources.
Interdisciplinary approaches and knowledge will be important. Once per week, the students will have a meeting with at least two faculty to discuss the approaches and results. Over the course, the students shall obtain profound knowledge in one well-defined area.

Target group: Students across all fields

Prerequisites: None really. A critical mind and genuine interest in understanding.

Evaluation: Presentation and participation.

Teaching format: ca. 4 seminar lectures by the instructors
project work: students will review literature and obtain through them insights into physical problems (e.g. resource consumption of electric car use).
Depending on the number of students, we may have 2 or 3 groups working on different sub-topics.
An intermediate presentation of the progress of the research, and a final presentation. (Possibly, as last year, a presentation to a wider audience, e.g. institute colloquium).

ECTS: 3 Year: 2024

Track segment(s):
Elective

Teacher(s):
Jeroen Dobbelaere Paul Schanda Stefan Freunberger Georgios Katsaros

Teaching assistant(s):
Paul Falthansl-Scheinecker