Students act as mining engineers and simulate ore mining production by using chocolate chip cookies. They focus on the cost-benefit analysis of the chocolate ore production throughout the simulation, which helps them understand the cost of production. As students “mine” with tools such as paperclips and toothpicks, they keep records of their costs—land (cookie), equipment used, cookie size before and after production, and time spent. While the goal is to make as much profit as possible, other costs and goals are taken into consideration—as in real-world mining engineering. For example, mining engineers also consider the resulting amount of destruction to the lithosphere when deciding the best method to obtain ore. Thus, a line item for land reclamation cost is included from the beginning. A provided worksheet serves as a profit and loss statement.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students conduct research on electric bicycles and electric cars, choose one of these technologies, and create a video promoting its use as a climate solution.

SCIENTIST NOTES: Over the course of their use, electric cars are far more environmentally friendly than conventional automobiles. This lesson examines those benefits as well as how to make cities friendlier to bikes and other commuting options. The external resources in this lesson have passed our scientific review process.

POSITIVES:
-Students must use hard data to promote either electric bicycles or electric cars.
-Students record quick, informative videos as their assessment in this lesson plan.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should have a basic understanding of climate change. They should know that burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases and that greenhouse gases are heating up the planet.
-There are fourteen total images in the Inquire section. Feel free to disregard some of them based on your needs.
-Many students assume that electric cars do not create emissions at all. Students will learn:
-There are embedded emissions from the manufacturing of electric cars.
-Electric cars that use electricity generated by fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) are still creating emissions.
-Your students will need access to devices to record their advertisements. Students can record themselves on iPods, iPads, laptops, or other school devices. Depending on your school's phone policy, you can have your students use their own devices.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Be sensitive to the socioeconomic situation of your students. Some students' families may not own bicycles or cars or be able to afford electric bicycles or electric cars.
-Creating the advertisement can be done as a homework assignment.
-Students may want to include drawings, puppets, props, or other creative items in their advertisements. Encourage their creative expression!

EME 801 provides a broad introduction to global markets for crude oil and refined petroleum products, natural gas, and electric power. A major goal of the course is to help students understand how market design, market institutions, and regulatory structures affect firm-level decision-making in the energy industries and ultimately, how these decisions affect the functioning of energy markets and the prospects for alternative technologies.

ERBA (ESD.72) emphasizes three methodologies - reliability and probabilistic risk assessment (RPRA), decision analysis (DA), and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). In this class, the issues of interest are: the risks associated with large engineering projects such as nuclear power reactors, the International Space Station, and critical infrastructures; the development of new products; the design of processes and operations with environmental externalities; and infrastructure renewal projects.

This course explores the proper role of government in the regulation of the environment. It will help students develop the tools to estimate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. These tools will be used to evaluate a series of current policy questions, including: Should air and water pollution regulations be tightened or loosened? What are the costs of climate change in the U.S. and abroad? Is there a "Race to the Bottom" in environmental regulation? What is "sustainable development"? How do environmental problems differ in developing countries? Are we running out of oil and other natural resources? Should we be more energy efficient? To gain real world experience, the course is scheduled to include a visit to the MIT cogeneration plant. We will also do an in-class simulation of an air pollution emissions market.

In this video (6 minutes long) students will learn about how externalities can affect supply, demand and ultimately equilibrium. This video will aid in review of standard EFP. 3 since students will see how a supply and demand graph can shift as a result of costs / benefits of externalities.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students think about their ideal farm and look at case studies from around the world to investigate farmers' responses to the impact of climate change on food production.

SCIENTIST NOTES: With different case studies, this lesson introduces students to the concept of climate-smart agriculture. In this light, they will be able to model innovative techniques to achieve a sustainable food system in their local communities and beyond. All materials have been rigorously fact-checked, and this lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students get to be creative with their designs of a sustainable farm.
-Students learn about sustainable farming and solutions-based thinking for a growing population with limited resources in a changing climate.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 4 of 6 in our 6th-8th grade Climate Change, Food Production, and Food Security unit.
-Students should understand that different regions will respond to climate change differently based on how they experience the impacts of climate change.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Teachers can assign the Teacher Slideshow and Student Document on Google Classroom and students can submit their work independently.
-Teachers can group students for the guided research questions and assign them level-appropriate resources.
-Teachers can eliminate case study options if the options are overwhelming.
-Teachers can review the Teacher Slideshow as a class and answer the questions as a whole group assignment.

Competition, sportsmanship, and national pride are the foundations of the Olympics, but how much do the Olympics cost the host city and country? What are some of the economic benefits and deficits? Is the investment in the Olympics worth it in the end? Read about previous host experiences with the economic side of the Olympics in the August 2012 issue.

This class will study the behavior of photovoltaic solar energy systems, focusing on the behavior of "stand-alone" systems. The design of stand-alone photovoltaic systems will be covered. This will include estimation of costs and benefits, taking into account any available government subsidies. Introduction to the hardware elements and their behavior will be included.

After a brief history of plastics, students look more closely as some examples from the abundant types of plastics found in our day-to-day lives. They are introduced to the mechanical properties of plastics, including their stress-strain relationships, which determine their suitability for different industrial and product applications. These physical properties enable plastics to be fabricated into a wide range of products. Students learn about the different roles that plastics play in our lives, Young's modulus, and the effects that plastics have on our environment. Then students act as industrial engineers, conducting tests to compare different plastics and performing a cost-benefit analysis to determine which are the most cost-effective for a given application, based on their costs and measured physical properties.

1.040 Project Management focuses on the management and implementation of construction projects, primarily infrastructure projects. A project refers to a temporary piece of work undertaken to create a unique product or service. Whereas operations are continuous and repeating, projects are finite and have an end date. Projects bring form or function to ideas or need. Some notable projects include the Manhattan Project (developing the first nuclear weapon); the Human Genome Project (mapping the human genome); and the Central Artery Project (Boston's "Big Dig"). The field of project management deals with the planning, execution, and controlling of projects.
The course is divided into three parts:
Part 1: project finance
Part 2: project evaluation
Part 3: project organization
This course will cover the basic tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to successfully manage a project through its inception, design, planning, construction, and transition phases. There will be several guest lectures discussing current projects, and a construction site visit to MIT's Media Lab extension.

This is a clip from Seinfeld in which Jerry does a cost -benefit analysis of installing illegal cable. He decides to commit the crime when he finds out there will be 75 televised Mets games on TV.

A cost-benefit analysis is a good way to weigh the costs and the benefits and compare them to see if the decisions being made are sound and worthwhile. For a hypothetical solar farm design problem, students are given a solar cost-benefit analysis sheet to complete within groups. They weigh the expense and benefits of two types of solar panels (with different costs, wattage outputs and land impacts), consider the cost of using the acreage for solar (which removes it from ranching use), and explain why they consider the panel combination they propose to be best. If the costs outweigh the benefits, then a project is not worth doing. On the other hand, if the benefits outweigh the costs, then it is worth implementing the plan.

Students will determine the costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of policies, beginning with analysis of a policy that would allow them to take two years off of school between grades 10 and 11. They will then analyze the costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of various government policies.

In this example, students are asked to research the effects of Wal-Mart on small town economies, relate those effects to their own town, and draw a conclusion based on those effects.

Students research the feasibility of installing a wind-turbine distributed energy (DE) system for their school. They write a proposal (actually, the executive summary of a proposal) to the school principal based on their findings and recommendations. While this activity is geared towards fifth-grade and older students, and Internet research capabilities are required, some portions of this activity may be appropriate for younger students.