Interplay of science, technology, the environment, and society. Approaches from across the social sciences will cover how science and technology can create new environmental pressures as well as policy challenges in a range of spheres from climate change to systems of intellectual property and international development.

Exploration of the conceptual and ethical dimensions of science, technology, and environmental policy. Discussion-based course with rotating topics.

Introduction to economic principles and methods as they apply to environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, and water quality. Course will cover benefit-cost analysis, methods of environmental valuation, as well as critiques of market-based solutions to environmental challenges.

Interplay between risk analysis, decision making, and policy in the context of new and emerging technologies, environmental and human well-being, risk and resilience. Assessment methods; risk management processes, issues and methods; role/treatment of uncertainty; factors in decision making; risk-based rule making; public values; risk communication and perception. Scientific, technical, social, political, and ethical issues. prereq: Grad student or instr consent

Agricultural lands, water resources, and energy production and transport are interconnected systems with implications for policy and management at local to global scales. This course will explore contemporary issues at the nexus of food, energy, and water with a focus on Midwestern landscapes. Specific topics include farm policy, permitting of pipelines and energy production, mitigation of air and water pollution, and strategies to incentivize the conservation and restoration of landscapes. Students will develop professional skills in systems thinking, scenario analysis, science communication, facilitation, and collective leadership.

Process of public policy analysis from problem structuring to communication of findings. Commonly used analytical methods. Alternative models of analytical problem resolution.

Politics is how we make collective decisions about matters of shared consequence. This course examines politics and introduces students to key concepts and skills needed for effective political analysis. The central themes of the course focus on power; institutions and organizations; discourse; and citizenship.

Basic statistical tools for empirical analysis of public policy alternatives. Frequency distributions, descriptive statistics, elementary probability/probability distributions, statistical inference. Estimation/hypothesis testing. Cross-tabulation/chi-square distribution. Analysis of variance, correlation. Simple/multiple regression analysis.

Introduces a range of quantitative tools that are commonly used to inform issues in public affairs. The course provides an introduction to descriptive statistics, probability, and statistical inference, with an emphasis on the ways in which quantitative tools are applied to a diverse range of practical policy questions. PA 5045 is an accelerated treatment of applied statistics for public affairs and serves as a more mathematically and conceptually rigorous alternative to PA 5031.

Bivariate/multivariate models of regression analysis, assumptions behind them. Problems using these models when such assumptions are not met.

Qualitative analysis techniques, examples of application. Meet with researcher. Hands-on experience in designing, gathering, analyzing data.

Bivariate/multivariate models used in regression analysis, including assumptions behind them/problems that arise when assumptions are not met. Course covers similar topics as PA 5032 but delves deeper into theory/application of methods. prereq: Students who register for PA 5044 must take PA 5044 and PA 5033 in the same semester. The same grade will be issued for PA 5044 and PA 5033 after PA 5033 is completed.

Use of bivariate and multivariate statistical approaches for analyzing and evaluating public affairs issues and the assumptions behind the analytical approaches. Designed to help students read, understand, interpret, use, and evaluate empirical work used in social sciences by policy analysts and policy makers. prereq: Students who register for PA 5033 must take PA 5044 and PA 5033 in the same semester. The same grade will be issued for PA 5044 and PA 5033 after PA 5033 is completed.

Economic/demographic data analysis techniques for planning. Exposure to most important data sources. Conceptual understanding of range of methods/hands-on experience in applying these methods. prereq: Major or minor in urban/regional planning or instr consent

Introduction to GIS. Applications in public planning and policy analysis. Operational skills in GIS software. Mapping analysis of U.S. Census material. Local/state government management/planning. Spatial statistical analysis for policy/planning. prereq: Major in urban/regional planning or instr consent

This course covers the core principals, methods, and implementation of evaluation research. Students will learn through an applied partnership with a nonprofit or state/local government clients. The course is designed for both students interested in a potential career in evaluation and those that want to be better consumers of research. Past programmatic/policy areas included health and human services, education, environment science, economic development, transportation, and evidence-based policymaking.

Techniques of development planning/policy analysis at national, regional, and project levels. Effects of external shocks and government interventions on national/regional economies. Macroeconomic modeling, input-output analysis, social accounting matrices/multipliers, project evaluation. prereq: 5031 or equiv recommended or instr consent

Introduction to R Studio software. Use of R Studio to carry out R file and related database management functions. Tools and techniques for data analysis and statistical programming in quantitative research or related applied areas. Topics include data selection, data manipulation, and data and spatial visualization (including charts, plots, histograms, maps, and other graphs). Prerequisite knowledge: Introductory statistics; ability to create bar graphs, line graphs, and scatter plots in MS Excel; and familiarity with principles of data visualization.

Tools for communicating quantitative information in an intelligent, effective and persuasive way. Topics covered include 1) writing and speaking about data; 2) data management in Excel in order to prepare data for charting; 3) understanding and ability to deploy core concepts in of design, layout, typography and color to maximize the impact of their data visualizations 4) determining which types of statistical measures are most effective for each type of data and message; 5) determining which types of design to use for communicating quantitative information; and 6) designing graphs and tables that are intelligent and compelling for communicating quantitative information.

Hands-on experience with common issues that arise when using secondary data sets. After successful completion of the course, students should be able to: 1. Determine where to find data and information about data (metadata) for policy-related topics. 2. Repurpose, manipulate, and/or clean data collected by someone else or for a different purpose in order to answer questions. 3. Determine appropriate units of analysis, weights, data structure, and variables of interest in order to answer policy-related questions. 4. Document workflow to allow reproducibility and protect the confidentiality of the data. 5. Conduct basic data manipulation tasks (making tables) using existing software including Excel and Stata. 6. Learn how to find answers for questions through online support. This course will focus on Excel and Stata equally. Previous experience in Stata is preferred, but the course will include a brief introduction to relevant skills.

Applied (hands-on) introduction to survey questionnaire design. Student teams design a questionnaire for a client. For example, students may draft and revise questions about respondents' demographics and employment; life histories; knowledge, use, and opinions about services; and/or anxiety and well-being. The syllabus evolves depending on the needs of the client and the class' decisions about how to build the survey; a complete syllabus will not be available at the beginning of class for this reason. Readings include a textbook and articles related to the client's survey. Students actively engage in class and in groups about draft questions, thus learning how to improve them, with regular feedback from the instructor. Questions are tested on volunteers. Students learn: the process of questionnaire design in a team; pitfalls of survey design; and how to track questions, coded responses, and prompts for interviewers. This class is not a substitute for a comprehensive survey research class or a statistical course on sampling and weighting. Students will learn: - The process of questionnaire design in a team - Basic pitfalls of survey design ? names, definitions, examples. - How to use Excel to track questions, coded responses, and prompts for interviewers - How to use interviewing software SurveyToGo This class is not a substitute for a comprehensive survey research class or a statistical course on sampling and weighting.

Environmental racism can be defined as policies and practices that result in communities of Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPoC communities) being overexposed to environmental harms and being denied access to environmental goods. The environmental justice (EJ) movement in the United States was birthed in the 1980s with the aim of ending environmental racism. Early EJ activism was led by Black rural communities protesting the disproportionate presence of toxic waste facilities in their neighborhoods and Latinx migrant farmworkers who were overexposed to harmful pesticides. Central to the course is the understanding that structural racism, in the form of social, political, and economic forces, has denied BIPoC individuals and communities their rights to live in clean environments and access natural resources that allow communities to build and maintain their physical, mental, emotion, and fiscal health. Although the course focuses on race and racism, it takes as axiomatic that racism is intertwined with other systems of oppression including, but not limited to, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia. The course begins by tracing the history of the EJ movement and unpacking the terms ?racism? and ?justice.? The main body of the course will focus on a series of issues that EJ scholars and activists address including pollution, greening, transportation, disasters, and climate change. The course ends with discussions and reflections on our roles, responsibilities and possibilities as public policy and planning scholars, researchers and practitioners to work towards ending environmental racism and achieving EJ for all. The required ?readings? for the course will include academic journal articles, news stories, governmental policies, podcasts, videos, poetry, and short stories. This will allow us to understand the theoretical and methodological approaches to EJ activism and research and explore popular and creative forms of knowledge about EJ which will add depth to our understanding and analysis of relevant plans and policies. Our time together in the classroom will primarily be a mix of lectures, group discussions, in-class exercises, and occasionally guest speakers. While we will reflect on some international issues and materials, we will largely focus on EJ in the United States.

Impact of energy production/consumption choices on environmental quality, sustainable development, and other economic/social goals. Emphasizes public policy choices for energy/environment, linkages between them.

Socio-cultural, legal, and economic forces that affect water resource use. Water quality, Clean Water Act contrasted with international laws, roles of State and Local agencies. Water supply, drought, flooding, drainage, irrigation, storage. Sulfide mining, Line 3, hypoxia, wildfire, climate, snowpack, extreme events, China south-to-north transfer, CEC?s, AIS, Aral Sea, CAFOs, and more.

Existing and proposed approaches to mitigate and adapt to climate change through policies that cross scales of governance (from local to global) and impact a wide range of sectors. Exploration of climate change policy from a variety of disciplinary approaches and perspectives, emphasizing economic logic, ethical principles, and institutional feasibility. How policy can be shaped in the face of a variety of competing interests to achieve commonly desired outcomes. Students develop a deep knowledge of climate change in particular countries through a team final project. prereq: Intro microecon (such as Econ 1101 or equiv)

This interdisciplinary course will examine issues at the nexus of public policy, ethics, law, and emerging sciences and technologies (ES&T) including nanotechnology, genetic and biomedical engineering, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence. Topics we will explore include the role of science and technology as both a tool for and the subject of policy and law; the policy, ethical, economic, and legal implications of ES&T research and development; environmental and human health risk analysis and regulation (e.g., EPA, FDA, OSHA, and state and local regulatory mechanisms); intellectual property issues; liability issues; and global impacts. Topics will be approached from the perspective of different stakeholders (e.g., federal agencies, industry, academic researchers, the environment, international organizations, and the public) and in the context of different application areas (e.g., drugs, devices, food, agriculture, energy, environmental remediation) using a variety of interdisciplinary approaches. Students with a broad range of interests are encouraged to enroll.

Examine energy and climate innovations at local and community scales. Understand how to implement local policies, projects, and programs with a diverse set of perspectives on energy issues. Develop professional and analytical skills that support solutions to energy and climate challenges.

Selected topics.

(No description) prereq: Max 18 cr per semester or summer; 10 cr total required [Plan A only]

Project for external client on issue agreed upon by student, client, and instructor. Students apply interdisciplinary methods, approaches, and perspectives from core courses. Written report with analysis and policy recommendations. Oral presentation. Topics vary by term. prereq: completion of core courses or instr consent

Facilitates completion of research paper on current issues in public policy, management, and science, technology and environment. Students apply interdisciplinary methods, approaches, and perspectives studied in core courses. Written report includes analysis of issue, policy recommendations. All topics accepted. Plan A students welcome. prereq: completion of core courses, or instr consent

Students work under guidance of paper adviser and committee members to complete their Professional Paper (individual option). prereq: instr consent