Examine Global Challenges A Focus on Global Challenges: The U.N. Millennium Development Goals
Spotlight on the Panama Canal Expansion Project
Course: Sustainable Development in Panama
Faculty: Ed Berger, the University of Virginia
After exploring the fascinating history of the Panama Canal through visits to two Canal museums, an expedition to Miraflores Locks affords a first-hand investigaton of the Canal’s system of locks and an examination of the massive technical undertaking that is the Panama Canal Expansion Project. Geographic, economic, technical, and political contexts for the canal’s ongoing expansion will be explored in Panama City where modern civilization and ancient jungle landscape converge to reveal one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. How will the completion of the Panama Canal Expansion Project lift thirty percent of that country's population out of poverty? We'll investigate.
The 26-day short-term Semester at Sea voyage will explore some of the critical challenges facing humanity and give participants the opportunity to examine how solutions can be applied to ensure an equitable and sustainable future.
The United Nations has identified eight 'thousand-year' challenges we face as human beings on planet Earth; they are known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) . The MDGs establish milestones in addressing the needs of the 1.5 billion people who have no access to electricity (more than one of every five people on the planet), the almost 1 billion who have no clean drinking water, the more than 2 billion who are without sanitation, and the hundreds of millions of malnourished children who have to survive in conditions that allow 10 million under the age of five to die each year from preventable illness.
Do you also experience a sense of unreality when you hear these numbers? Where is the world described by the millennium goals and why is it so different from the one we know? Join us for this unique Semester At Sea voyage and explore the technologies which enable the quality of life many of us take for granted; technologies for clean drinking water, energy, transportation, food production, healthcare, education, and shelter, among others.
This voyage is an opportunity to understand the available technologies and the social, cultural, political and historical context in which problems arise and solutions must work. You will develop a perspective on the collective challenges we face in the 21st century and explore both the promise and the limitations of technology in creating adequate quality of life for all. If you've ever wondered about these challenges or wished you had more knowledge and skills to make a difference, join us. This voyage is for you.
About the Academic Program
Core courses (three credits) will be taught by engineering faculty with the support of faculty from the humanities and social sciences where appropriate. Additional contextual courses (three credits) will explore and develop the context of the core, within which we see how "quality of life" is reflected in culture, changed through history, and subject to political and economic forces.
All students will attend a Voyage Seminar (one credit), with ten lectures taught by pairs of engineering and social science/humanities faculty. Those lectures will cover themes such as:
- Understanding Poverty Through Clinical Economics
- The Energy Challenge We Face
- Assessing Community Need
- Central America—Past and Future
- Engineering a New Tomorrow—A New Path for a Sustainable Future for Humanity
- Water for the World
- Service in Developing Communities—Ethics Considerations