SHASS News

Returning farming to city centers
A new class is giving MIT students the opportunity to examine the historical and practical considerations of urban farming while developing a real-world understanding of its value by working alongside a local farm’s community. Course 4.182 (Resilient Urbanism: Green Commons in the City) is taught in two sections by instructors in the Program in Science, Technology, […]
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How drones are altering contemporary warfare
In recent months, Russia has frequently flown drones into NATO territory, where NATO countries typically try to shoot them down. By contrast, when three Russian fighter jets made an incursion into Estonian airspace in September, they were intercepted and no attempt was made to shoot them down — although the incident did make headlines and […]
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Where climate meets community
The MIT Living Climate Futures Lab (LCFL) centers the human dimensions of climate change, bringing together expertise from across MIT to address one of the world’s biggest challenges. The LCFL has three main goals: “addressing how climate change plays out in everyday life, focusing on community-oriented partnerships, and encouraging cross-disciplinary conversations around climate change on […]
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Q&A: How folk ballads explain the world
Traditional folk ballads are one of our most enduring forms of cultural expression. They can also be lost to society, forgotten over time. That’s why, in the mid-1700s, when a Scottish woman named Anna Gordon was found to know three dozen ancient ballads, collectors tried to document all of these songs — a volume of […]
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Helping K-12 schools navigate the complex world of AI
With the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence, teachers and school leaders are looking for answers to complicated questions about successfully integrating technology into lessons, while also ensuring students actually learn what they’re trying to teach. Justin Reich, an associate professor in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing program, hopes a new guidebook published by the MIT Teaching Systems […]
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