Sandra Penny: Using Regulating Carbon Emissions in Energy and the Environment (SCI-105) at Bard College

Unit 1: This unit fit nicely into one 80-minute lecture. We had time at the end to summarize some of the main things that we had learned as a class, and this was also useful time for me to clarify a few concepts that the students were hazy about. This Unit doesn't have a formal assignment with it, but I find that doesn't work for my students. I had them turn in a "Pre-Class Assignment," which counted as part of their participation grade, which was just a list of three topics they'd like to bring up in the class. This ensured that the students had at least skimmed the reading prior to class. This Unit should also fit well into a 50-minute class with an additional 20-minutes the next day to summarize.

Unit 2: Climate change is my area of expertise, so it was hard for me to consolidate all of climate science into just one class period. It would be my preference to spend 2-3 weeks on the materials in Units 1 and 2! However, I think the combination of Units 1 and 2 does a good job of consolidating the most important aspects of climate change that are relevant to the rest of the module. I have never used Pre-Class Recorded Lectures before, and I have to admit that I felt pretty detached from the material in the powerpoint while in class. I'd definitely suggest spending some time at the beginning of class to debrief about the pre-lecture video.

Unit 3:This was the most difficult unit for my students. Even after spending ~40 minutes introducing the model, with every student following along on an individual computer, and even though we filled out two of six parts of the table necessary for the webDICE homework and I made explicit reference to the homework in class, many if not most of my students were unable to run the model on their own time. We made several modifications to the module after pilot improve this, for example we added additional class time and gave modeling its own separate unit. Give them some time to work on their own to make predictions: "What should the temperature of the planet be if climate sensitivity is small?" Have them change a variable that they're very familiar with: "What would happen to the temperature of the planet be if the world's population grew unexpectedly fast?" They will see that increasing the maximum population (an option under "Economy" in the advanced inputs) of the planet pretty dramatically increases its temperature, as they likely could predict using their own logic. Finally, don't give the students too much time to forget how to use webDICE: the assignment should be due soon after you cover it in class. Two weeks later, very few students will remember what they did in class, even if it made sense to them at the time!

Unit 4: My students eagerly got into a discussion of CBDR and the social impacts of the SCC (Parts 1 and 2). If your class is like mine, you might find that you have to play the role of devil's advocate - most of my students are environmentalists and those who aren't usually keep their thoughts to themselves. My students weren't able to do Part 3 in small groups. Unless you have very policy-oriented students, I suspect that they won't have the background to answer all of these questions on their own. Part 4 is so topical that it has likely changed. Look up some of the most recent developments related to the CPP. While I was teaching this module, the Supreme Court Stayed the execution of the CPP and then conservative Justice Scalia passed away. As I write this, a Supreme Court ruling on the CPP is eminent. Even if the Supreme Court rules against the CPP, Massachusetts v. EPA still holds - there will just be some time before a new version of the CPP can be developed. I found it helpful to frame the CPP as part of a series of recent events events worldwide: After the CPP, there were a series of small commitments made by other countries to reduce their emissions (including China), and without the CPP and all the smaller commitments, it's unlikely that the Paris agreement would have occurred. When you teach this we will have a new president, and that person's priorities and opinions will have a dramatic effect on future US policy.

As a climate scientist, I found that this unit was hard for me to understand well enough to teach it. The reading is dense and doesn't directly answer all of the questions that are posed in this Unit. For the CBDR reading: it's worth warning the students before hand that the reading is pretty dense and it makes reference to a bunch of climate treaties that they (and likely you) won't know about, so don't get lost in all of that. The Supreme Court Syllabus was a great read even for me, a scientist who has never read a policy document in my life, so don't skip that.

Unit 5: My students were more familiar with SWOT Analysis than I was - I guess it is commonplace in business classes! I introduced the final RAFT essay topic before we did the SWOT analysis, and I'd definitely recommend that. The students recognized this as a great way to organize thoughts for the final RAFT essay and they were unusually active in class. The introduction to CBA and Abatement took me at least 50 minutes, if not longer. Abatement in particular was a tough concept for the students (and me, if I'm being honest), and I had to lecture on this for longer than I'd have preferred. Abatement is an important topic for the Carbon Emissions Game, so doing a specific and Game-Relevant example or two as a class or in small groups would be very useful here to help make Unit 6 fit into one class. The CBA assignment is very useful, and if you have the time to work on it in class (this'll probably mean that you spend more than the 50 minutes we allocated), then definitely do that. If not, don't skip it.

Again, as a climate scientist, it took me a long time to prepare for this Unit (though I didn't struggle as much as I did for Unit 5). Don't put off preparations until the last minute - there is a whole new language to get comfortable with, and it didn't come naturally to me.

Unit 6: The Game is a highlight of this Module. By the end, even my weakest students had a "A-ha" moments where the economics of this stuff started to click in. This unit barely fit into my 80-minute class, and we had no time for discussion at the end. We needed an additional 15 minutes the next day to debrief about the game.

Students struggled with the extra six zeros between $/ton and emissions being given in millions of tons, so be prepared to answer this question. A mistake on this caused one group to give a number to the Regulator that was about 3 orders of magnitude higher than they meant it to be. Make sure that you check that their calculations are correct (something that I regretted not doing).

I made a table with sample calculations for what should be costs for every carbon tax, at $50 increments between $100 and $300, before class. I was really glad I did this, even though the tax was set at $350 and I had to do the calculation on the fly anyway. My students miscalculated their total cost at the end, and it came from a misunderstanding about abatement. Example: Students thought that if they abated 9, they only paid to abate those 9, they didn't have to also pay the tax on the remaining 6. With a $300 tax or larger, Ace will become a carbon-neutral company, but my students initially predicted that they'd only abate 10 (since they knew this was the EPA's goal).

A few caveats: The fewer students in your class, the better. With 27 students in just 3 groups, I was bordering on too many. Also, there's a lot of down time while the Utilities are waiting on the Regulators and vice versa. If you have something else to give the students to work on or think about while they are waiting for their part, do. Finally, the Regulators get a little shorted on this - they don't do the same calculations, and they have more idle time. I spent some time with the Regulators during their idle time to explain the calculations that the other Utilities were working on, and what kinds of numbers they should expect to see and how to interpret them.

Unit 7: This unit was added after pilot so I don't have any specific comments on how it worked in my class. After pilot, we found that there was a lack of synthesis between the units and so this unit - which allows for mostly discussion in lieu of any additional materials being covered - was added.