Courses
I teach three courses at the O’Neill School - A graduate and undergraduate version of Human Behavior and Energy Consumption, an undergraduate course on Environment and People, and a graduate overview course on Energy Systems in Transition.
Human Behavior and Energy Consumption (HBEC)
Human Behavior and Energy Consumption examines how people, organizations, and institutions judge energy use, climate interventions, and sustainability strategies—and why perceived impact and effectiveness often diverge from reality. Rather than treating environmental action as primarily an information or motivation problem, the course centers on judgment: how individuals and communities evaluate what matters, which actions feel meaningful, and how cognitive, social, moral, and institutional factors shape priorities and decisions. Students learn to diagnose misperceptions about impact, evaluate behavioral leverage points, and design behaviorally informed interventions that are realistic about constraints, tradeoffs, and decision contexts.
Students will apply psychological/behavioral methods to individual energy consumption behaviors to facilitate a decrease in energy consumption per capita, and in doing so, become change agents themselves.
Past project YouTube videos:
2021
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2012
“Dr. Attari sets an outstanding example for what excellence in teaching and sustainability leadership represent. While her rigorous, discussion-based course gives students hope that individual actions do have the potential to influence the health of our planet and our social and economic systems for the better, it also challenges students to reach deeper, demonstrating the psychological and structural barriers to foster widespread shifts toward sustainability.””
Shahzeen received the Excellence in Teaching Award after being nominated by a former student in her Human Behavior and Energy Consumption (HBEC) course.
Environment and People
Environment and People is an introductory course on the human dimensions of environmental change. The course explores how humans interact with environmental systems, how risk and responsibility are perceived, and why societies often struggle to respond to slow-moving or system-level threats. Students learn to think clearly about impact and tradeoffs—what actions are effective, what solutions scale socially and institutionally, and how institutions and social norms shape environmental outcomes. The goal is to build practical systems-level reasoning and critical thinking about environmental problems and proposed solutions.
“Leader for the Greater Good””
Energy Systems in Transition
This is a graduate level highly interdisciplinary overview course that introduces the basic elements of energy and energy systems. We will learn about energy sources, how they work, and how the nature of sources shapes their roles within the energy sector. We will have a few guest lectures throughout the course to learn about different perspectives about energy systems.
The course goal: Students will acquire the ability to think and write critically about energy systems and energy transitions. Students will gain a level of familiarity with the complex problems associated with energy use to understand how to begin solving the challenges related to decarbonization.