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Course name: Planning for Climate Change
Name of academic: Elisabeth Hamin Infield
Main course information: This is a graduate level class offered at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Course goals are as follows: This seminar explores resiliency planning for communities, particularly in the relationship among climate change, built form and infrastructure. What design and regulatory changes are needed to help communities become more resilient to extreme events and climate change while reducing greenhouse gases? How should communities choose between traditional built infrastructure and green infrastructure? What are the equity implications of these choices – who wins, who loses, who pays, who benefits? The class uses active, community-engaged, team based learning. We will prepare a draft resiliency plan for a community each year; in this case, it is the UMass Campus. The plan will take a regional approach to identify potential policies and plans with a particular focus on environmental justice. The process will allow us to develop new frameworks to connect regional spatial form, changing climate, infrastructure, and governance. Key seminar learning goals include:
• Refresh and build basic knowledge of climate change science and policy;
• Develop awareness of both adaptation (adjusting to future climate) and mitigation (reducing greenhouse gasses) in an urban context;
• Apply an ethical lens to issues, attending to the distribution of costs and benefits of action and inaction and the integration of equity and vulnerability in analysis;
• Gain familiarity with planning issues in a developing country context;
• Develop research skills through analysis of a community plan and preparation of a research poster;
• Practice applying critical thinking skills to plans for adaptation/mitigation.
• Refresh and build basic knowledge of climate change science and policy;
• Develop awareness of both adaptation (adjusting to future climate) and mitigation (reducing greenhouse gasses) in an urban context;
• Apply an ethical lens to issues, attending to the distribution of costs and benefits of action and inaction and the integration of equity and vulnerability in analysis;
• Gain familiarity with planning issues in a developing country context;
• Develop research skills through analysis of a community plan and preparation of a research poster;
• Practice applying critical thinking skills to plans for adaptation/mitigation.
Year of publication (last updated max 5 years ago): 2018
Topic: Adaptation, Climate Resilience, Mitigation
Course website:
Region Examined: Global (more than one region)
Language: English
Other language: Please specify: Arabic
Geographical scale: City
Level of Instruction: Post-graduate
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