Sustainability Transitions, Transformations and Agents of Change

This course supports students to work as transdisciplinary scholars, thinking critically about how individuals, communities, entrepreneurs, firms, non-governmental organisations and governments (at multiple scales) can effect change for sustainability, and learning to synthesize and apply knowledge for sustainable and regenerative social, economic and environmental transformations. Sustainability problems, incorporating diverse values, knowledge and ways of seeing the world are often inherently conflictual. In this course students will learn tools to address these conflictual sustainability problems. The course will consider how to listen across significant differences of life experience and professional training and how to build network supports, identify stakeholders, develop resources and policies for implementation and evaluation to create or co-create a sustainability action plans for an applied field problem. The course will include an overnight field trip and opportunity to develop to applied research methods in a project about sustainable transitions.

30 points

SENS201

Water Resource Management

Management of freshwater resources and current issues relating to the use of water. Topics will include; frameworks for water management, reconciling economic, environmental, social and cultural needs, conflicts over water resource use, legislative requirements, hazard management and mitigation, and future water uses. Includes a half-day fieldtrip.

15 points

45 points at 200 level in any subject area.

Environmental Politics and Policy

Has green politics come of age? Around the world we are seeing spontaneous community movements challenging four difficult and intersecting issues: dangerous environmental change, growing social inequality, weak democracy and a paradigm of growth that has contributed to resource extraction beyond the capacity of the planet. Against a background of difficult issues including climate change and the impact of colonization, this course examines the roots of environmental thinking and activism and asks- what are the implications of these ideas for how we live as citizens, communities, businesses and nations and how might we plan for just transitions towards a more equitable and sustainable future? The course involves a weekend field trip.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from POLS, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA, or LAWS, GEOG, or the Schedule V of the BCom.

Health, Wellbeing and Environment

Human health and wellbeing are profoundly shaped by the environments in which we live. This course examines the influence of the physical, built and social aspects of the environment on health and wellbeing. In addition to gaining increased understanding of health-environment interactions, students will develop skills in tracking environmental exposures and in presenting research findings in both written and oral formats.

15 points

30 points of Geography at 200 level; or 30 points from Science, Arts or Health Sciences.

GEOG322