Data in a Changing Planet: Environmental Data and Sustainability

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course presents an introduction to the socio-technical study of knowledge infrastructures in the context of a rising quest for environmental sustainability. It examines the critical role of data in supporting scientific research, environmental action, and sustainability efforts. The goal is to critically discuss the central place of data in a changing world where the proliferation of new digital technologies supports new capabilities for sensing, sharing, processing, and visualizing rapidly accelerating environmental change. This course will bring forward the interconnected technical, cultural, historical, political, and social efforts that make environmental data possible. Applying socio-technical lenses to environmental data, we will go through the different stages of an environmental data workflow, all the way from data collection to visualization and reporting. The course will pay special attention to the local and global entities, past and present, that environmental data supports. We will focus on the implications of digital technologies for participatory and citizen sciences, open data, and data governance in the environmental space. Leaning on these critical tools, we will revise ongoing environmental struggles and data-fueled sustainability efforts to assess the implications of data in ongoing and future attempts to restore and reinvent the integrity of our planet and its life-supporting systems. The course will resort to practical examples using environmental datasets and a network of socio-environmental practitioners who will present selected topics throughout the semester.