Electricity just comes from the outlet on the wall, right? Sure, but there's a lot that happens before that. This class will bring you through the basics of the primary methods of electric power generation used in the US, including both the traditional sources (fossil fuels) and some new and growing ones. We'll compare them on metrics like efficiency, capacity factor, cost, environmental impact, and more. We'll compare what the mix of sources looks like now to what it might look like in the future. This class will introduce a bit of engineering thermodynamics, but it won't be a super math-heavy class. The main focus will be on the concepts.

Capitalism: you love it or you hate it, right? But not a lot of people can even properly define what it is. In this class, we’ll cover some history of economic thought and economic systems and define important terms and concepts along the way. We’ll talk about some of the downfalls of neoclassical economics and free markets, and why your economics teacher might not be telling you the whole story. Finally, we’ll try to imagine what the absence of capitalism even looks like. The main goals of this class will be to provide historical and philosophical context for ideas you’ve probably heard about mainly in non-academic settings, and to encourage critical thinking about societies, institutions, dogma, and power structures.

Are you concerned about climate change but unsure exactly what public policy can do about it, or what the government currently is doing? Here's your chance to learn! We'll start with what economics tells us is the best way to reduce emissions, explore the benefits and challenges of that approach, and look into different variations of it. We'll go through what state governments and the federal government are already doing to reduce emissions in the US, and the main proposals for what they should do going forward.

Electricity just comes from the outlet on the wall, right? Sure, but there's a lot that happens before that. This class will bring you through the basics of the primary methods of electric power generation used in the US, including both the traditional sources (fossil fuels) and some new and growing ones. We'll compare them on metrics like efficiency, capacity factor, cost, environmental impact, and more. We'll compare what the mix of sources looks like now to what it might look like in the future. This class will introduce a bit of engineering thermodynamics, but it won't be a super math-heavy class. The main focus will be on the concepts.

Are you interested in renewable energy? Saving the world? Cool technology? The ~future~? Are you curious about where you can get a hydrogen-powered car (yes, they do make those) and whether you should? Come learn about fuel cells and why some people think they might solve all of our problems. We’ll cover the basics of how they work and what their different applications are. We’ll do this in context of the difficult logistics of creating an entirely new energy infrastructure that won’t destroy the planet but also won’t crash and burn and fail. We’ll look at where we are today with fuel cells, what they could do in the future, and their advantages and disadvantages in different scenarios.

You probably heard about the big marriage equality Supreme Court case back in 2015, but that wasn’t the only US Supreme Court court case to address same-sex marriage - or the only one about LGBTQ rights. There’s a lot that makes headlines about LGBTQ rights, but the context behind those events, and why they happen the way they do, is just as important - and that’s what you’ll learn in this class. We’ll explore how LGBTQ rights in the US got to where they are today, and what issues still haven’t been resolved. Learning about this is particularly important if you’re LGBTQ, so you can understand what your rights are (especially discrimination protections, which we’ll talk a lot about). But it’s also really interesting - so feel free to come if you just want to learn about civil rights law or some court cases!