Course Identification

This course is aimed at exposing students to the practice of making back of the envelope calculations (so called Fermi problems) with key numbers in  sustainability, and its useful applications in research. We will learn how to identify the major factors that determine the order of magnitude of the results, when to allow simplification, how to calculate them efficiently, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

The course is composed of weekly lectures on different aspects of sustainability through many examples of basic (yet often surprising) questions:

-Size and geometry (e.g. What weighs more: All human-made things or all living things on our planet?

- Concentrations and absolute numbers (e.g. How many ants are there and do we really ingest a credit card’s worth of plastic in our lifetime? ?)

- Energies and Forces (e.g. How much can you climb with an energy snack bar and how much land is needed to grow our food?)

- Rates and durations (e.g. is the rate of climate change and how many people are needed to clean all hiking trails in Israel?)

The last few meetings of the course will be dedicated to presentations of student calculations as a final assignment.

Upon successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate how knowledge of key numbers can be used to make useful inferences in sustainability, and applied in research.

2. Experience hands-on back of the envelope calculations as a powerful tool in sustainability biology.

3. Avoid pitfalls in interpretation and correctly balance the complexity of biology and the clear-cut deductions often used potently in the physical sciences.

4. Bring a deeper quantitative perspective to their field of research expertise.

Course book is freely available at: http://book.bionumbers.org/

Specific reading material will be given during the course.