EnergyClasses, a web-based tool that identifies MIT classes that revolve around or include energy research, policy or technology in their curricula, launches today.
Under the leadership of the Energy Research Council's education subcommittee, a group of faculty, students and staff created the energy classes database. EnergyClasses will be managed initially by the education program of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE).
The ERC, created by MIT President Susan Hockfield in June 2005 to come up with an MIT strategy for dealing with the global energy crisis, is made up of 16 faculty members from every school across the Institute. Co-chaired by Chevron Professor Robert C. Armstrong, head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Cecil and Ida Green Professor Ernest J. Moniz, co-director of LFEE, the council is working on a set of recommendations for Hockfield about how MIT can have an even bigger impact on addressing the world's energy problems in the future.
EnergyClasses will be part of a larger ERC web site that will feature a comprehensive database of energy initiatives on campus related to seeking out and manipulating primary sources of energy; innovative ways to harvest, store and transport energy; new ways to make buildings, vehicles, utilities, etc., more efficient; and the science, technology, policy and politics behind energy's impact on people and the planet.
In addition, the site will highlight individuals, student groups and laboratories involved in energy research, provide links to global energy news and promote upcoming energy-related MIT events.
Inquiries and new class suggestions for EnergyClasses can be forwarded to Amanda Graham at agraham@mit.edu.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 25, 2006 (download PDF).
