Course Title: Sustainability: Society and Environment

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Sustainability: Society and Environment

Credit Points: 12

Course Coordinator: Dr Nicole Cook and Cathryn Kriewaldt

Course Coordinator Phone: 03 9925 3444 (Nicole)

Course Coordinator Email:nicole.cook@rmit.edu.au OR cathryn.kriewaldt@rmit.edu.au

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None

Course Description

In recent years, the idea of sustainability has moved centre-stage in debates about human futures. This course draws attention to the interactions between society and the environment that underpin sustainable outcomes in a range of contexts. This multi-disciplinary course will introduce you to a range of global and national debates surrounding social, environmental and economic sustainability. It will challenge you to identify how sustainable outcomes may be enhanced, especially in relation to your professional contexts. All issues explored in the course are situated in the professional contexts of the program areas.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This course builds on and helps develop written and verbal communication skills, reflexive learning skills and collaborative research skills.

At the end of this course you will be able to:

1. Appreciate the ways that the relationships between society and the environment shape sustainable outcomes.
2. Better understand the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainability, and the relations between them.
3. Identify a range of challenges faced by contemporary societies in terms of environmental, social and economic sustainability.
4. Identify the wide range of actors— operating at the local, national and global scale— that shape sustainable outcomes.
5. Analyse a socio-environmental problem which emerges in your program field and devise solutions with reference to sustainable outcomes.
6. Relate the concept of sustainability to your professional area.
7. Prepare clearly written summaries, reports and essays; perform database searches, data analysis and interpretation; critically read and revise writing and develop lines of argument supported by appropriate evidence; correctly reference and support written work.
8. Listen and participate in group discussion; reflect on the role played by one’s own attitudes and beliefs; solve problems, make decisions and manage time constraints; develop insights into your own learning and to undertake collaborative research.

In this course you will develop the following program capabilities:

• Critical analysis
• Environmental responsibility
• International and cross cultural engagement
• Knowledge
• Teamwork
• Technical and professional skills

Overview of Learning Activities

You will attend a 1 hour lecture, and a 2 hour workshop each week. The lecture is delivered on Wednesday at 8:30am in MCCC01 and (repeated on) Thursday at 12:30pm in MCCC01, and lecture notes (in the form of pdf or powerpoint files) will be available on myRMIT studies Workshops are designed to encourage deeper engagement with the concepts covered in lectures, to help develop research, writing and group participation skills and to link the themes of this course to professional contexts (whether that is Social Work, Planning, Legal and Dispute Studies, Psychology, Social Science including International Studies, or Environment). Workshops are designed to help you prepare assignments, including any points of clarification of support you may need, and to reflect on key themes of the course. We strongly recommend that you attend workshops.

Workshops in this course are based on a set of course readings. These are available (for free) electronically from myRMIT studies or available for purchase on disk or in print through Organarchy (in the Caf, 8.4) or the RMIT Bookshop. The assignments will be based on lecture material, workshop discussions, workshop activities and the material provided in the reading pack along with your own independent research. In addition, the problem-based assignment will require you to identify and discover specific material you need, with the advice and help of your tutor.

During workshops students will be introduced to the use of the learning resources and facilities at RMIT. You will be provided with resources that will enable you to work through course topics at your own time and pace. The course involves online delivery of core content areas and associated web-based learning activities presented through myRMIT studies. It is integral to the learning experience that you regularly log on to myRMIT studies to access resources. We will be walking you through myRMIT studies in one of the workshops (based in the computer labs).

Overview of Learning Resources

You will be able to use a reading pack, myRMIT studies, as well as review newspapers and electronic media items each week.

Overview of Assessment

You will demonstrate your learning in this course by completing assessment tasks with a total word length or equivalent of 4,000 words.