The Grand Challenges Program welcomes students from multiple academic disciplines to learn about the Grand Challenges themes and prepares them to address complex environmental problems in their future studies and careers.

Courses of Interest

Working in collaboration with academic departments across the Princeton University campus, Grand Challenges has identified more than 250 courses with links to Grand Challenges topics. Each semester, the Program publishes courses of interest for each of the three focal areas as a road map for students.

• Climate and Energy Challenge Courses
• Development Challenge Courses
• Health Challenge Courses

Several freshman seminars specifically target Grand Challenges themes to incoming students. Taught by Grand Challenges faculty, these introductory courses provide exposure to insights evolving from Grand Challenges research while inspiring a generation of students to consider their role in addressing the environmental challenges of the 21st century. Some 2011-2012 Freshman Seminars include:

• FRS 101: Signals, Yardsticks and Tipping Points of Global Warming
• FRS 105: Water: Keystone for Sustainable Development
• FRS 123: Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island: Severe Accidents and Nuclear Power
• FRS 141: Health Concerns in the 21st Century
• FRS 171: Earth's Environments and Ancient Civilizations
• FRS 173: Global Environmental Change: Science, Technology, and Policy

Upper-level Grand Challenges offerings, in the form of seminars and task-force-style courses, provide students concentrating in discrete disciplines with an interdisciplinary understanding of the central topics of climate and energy, development and health, while sharpening the focus on their field of study. Multiple Grand Challenges courses have involved course related fieldwork and research in destinations including field sites in Bermuda, Kenya, Norway, Panama, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.