Saving Our Planet: Workshop

• Semester: Fall 2021
• Course ID: 196W
• Credit Hours: 1
• Unique: 29704

Description

Must be concurrently enrolled in the Saving Our Planet seminar.

This workshop will provide an opportunity for members of the seminar Saving the Planet: Investigating the Economics, Law, and Policy of Innovation to deepen and extend their seminar endeavors by enrolling in a one-credit workshop that will orbit the 3-credit course (that is, the seminar itself.)

The orbital design will be created by the Workshop participants, with my guidance, at two planning sessions. One will directly follow the second seminar meeting of the term, on September 1st. The second will take place at the same time two weeks later, on September 15th, with likely communications between and among us in between. The group will decide on the Workshop’s specific goals and content no later than the second planning session. After the design has been shaped, with input from all participants, the Workshop will meet for six concurrent weeks that will begin on Wednesday, October 6th and end on Wednesday, November 10th.

    Possible designs include—without limitation and in no-priority order:   

• (1) Doing a collaborative research and writing project on a topic chosen by all participants. This could be a topic outside the syllabus or an extension of one that’s inside it.
• (2) Researching, writing, and submitting for publication opinion-editorials, after reading and discussing examples in the course materials and others I’ll provide.
• (3) Attending a conference devoted to the presentation of new solutions to major environmental problems, especially (though not limited to) ones involving oceans and other aquatic environments and new energy sources that can operate at scale. The conference features the award of major cash awards after a live competition among finalists. The conference will introduce three additional college-level competitions this year. It’s to be held in Ft Lauderdale, Florida on October 24-26th. Workshop participants could participate in the winnowing process for the contestants, which involves table discussions held for potential investors who attend this conference. The sponsoring organization is The Ocean Exchange: See oceanexchange.org. (This would likely be combined with a second Workshop project.)

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The obvious question is: Do all participants have to agree on the same project? The answer is: no. But some collaboration among participants is among my goals.

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With enrollment limited to seminar participants, there are no questionnaires, interviews, or other special qualifications necessary for Workshop enrollment. I welcome all seminarians who would like to participate in this innovation in course-design!