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(Tuesday, 11:00am - 12:15pm) LBB 153

Neuroscience of Learning:Ìý (SpringÌý2025)

What are you an expert in? How did you achieve that expertise? How can you use that process to develop your expertise in any area? Learning how to learn is a fundamental piece of developing any expertise, whether it is expertise in sports, music, academic, or time management. In this interdisciplinary course we will explore the underpinnings of expertise-building by examining how the brain acquires, stores, and integrates new knowledge. By the end of the course, you should be able to: (1) describe the neurobiology of how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information, (2) predict how changes to neural systems can affect their function, and (3) connect the neurobiology of how people learn to specific learning strategies. To build your expertise in these areas, we will be weaving together knowledge from three disciplines: neurobiology, cognitive psychology, and education research. For the final class project, we will work together as a class to develop a way to share this knowledge (your new expertise) with others.Ìý

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(Thursday, 3:30pm-4:45pm) LBB341

Genes to Gender(Spring 2025)

Too often I have heard people use a binary definition of biological sex to justify a binary definition of gender. And too often biology courses reinforce this false dichotomy by teaching only a male/female binary definition of sex characteristics, overlooking the wide range of variation that exists. But not this class! This class focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of the variation of biological traits and how they may contribute to but do not direct gender identity. By the end of the class you should be able to: (1) differentiate gender and biological sex; (2) describe genetic, reproductive, hormonal, physical, and neural variation in sex characteristics; (3) identify factors that impact one’s gender identity, and (4) discuss how the use of a binary definition of sex and gender impacts those with non-binary, intersex, and transgender identities. We will close the class by exploring how a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender can inform current societal issues.

Debates in International AffairsÌý(ARSC 1480 – 400R / Kevin Mason)

Wednesdays 3:35pm – 4:50pm, DUANE G1B39

In this discussion-based class you’ll debate key issues facing the world today, including topics related to immigration, climate change, geopolitics, regional cooperation, and global health, with your classmates in a roundtable discussion format. Throughout the semester we’ll also engage in lecture and conversation about the historical and contemporary context underlying each of these issues. This course emphasizes the development of your dialogue and argumentation skills, with a focus on listening to and engaging with diverse perspectives which may be different than your own, seeking compromise, and finding solutions. As we move through the semester, you’re expected to be a regular consumer of world news and to keep up to date with what’s happening around the world – each class will dedicate time to student-facilitated discussions of the week’s news. By the end of this class, you will have a greater appreciation of the complexity of global issues, be better able to articulate your opinions and perspectives through effective argumentation, and gain experience in engaging with different perspectives on the world.

(Tuesdays 9:30am-10:45am) LBB 251

Five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, what have we learned? How did our past experiences with pandemic diseases inform our response to COVID-19? How are we preparing for the next pandemic? This course uses a biosocial approach to explore our responses to pandemics past and present while paying particular attention to social inequities and public health policy at local, national, and global scales. Informed by health and medical geography, epidemiology, and public health research, we will discuss social determinants of health, health systems, global health actors, and the collection of health data to better understand how we respond to pandemics. The final group project for this course will involve creating a pandemic response plan for a fictional disease outbreak. By the end of this course, you will gain the tools, concepts, and vocabulary to think about public health in your own life and you’ll leave the course with a greater understanding of the contemporary challenges facing the field of public health around the US and the world.

The 8-session Pass/Fail option only MCP course is the result of a multi-year collaborative and participatory process. Simply stated, the Mindful Campus course was created to actively encourage the mindfulness and wellness of undergraduates at the University of Å·ÃÀ¿Ú±¬ÊÓƵ-Boulder.ÌýÌý

Our intention in creating an 8-week Mindful Campus MASP course is to build a community of practitioners. Together, we will prioritize care for our bodies, minds, and spirits. We will accomplish this by engaging in lectures, discussion, journaling, meditation, and movement. The tools of art and music will be integrated into all that we do. Therefore, whether you are new to meditation, frustrated by meditation, a contemplative movement beginner, or a seasoned practitioner, you are invited to meet, listen, and learn from one another, and us. You are encouraged to come and be, without fear of judgment, criticism, or the need to educate anyone but yourself.ÌýÌý

All MASP students are welcome to participate in the course. Please know that there will be an emphasis on the significance of mindfulness for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. We will discuss and explore injustice, and intersecting oppression(s) with the understanding that trauma-inducing systems must be resisted on all fronts. Mindfulness is but one path.Ìý

Course title: Enacting Change: Creating Hopeful Climate Stories

Enacting Change: Creating Hopeful Climate Stories explores the power of storytelling to chart an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future for all life and the eco-systems upon which life depends. Together we will co-create stories through creative improvisation, activities, and games. Play, social justice, and imagination will be central to our process to collaboratively envision sustainable futures.