Details for Environmental Sustainability

Awards offering Environmental Sustainability

This unit is offered as a part of the following awards:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education (Secondary)
• Bachelor of Education (Secondary)

Unit Content

Curriculum Objective

Like all Geography courses at Alphacrucis College, Environmental Sustainability is designed to help students understand the distinctive nature of Geography as a subject that links the physical and human facets of our environment, focussing on the processes of spatial interactions and their patterns in both time and space.  GEO302 Environmental Sustainability provides a study of sustainable management in a variety of physical environments at a variety of scales.  Building upon the understandings of biophysical processes developed in GEO202 and through the extensive use of case studies, this course examines water management futures in freshwater environments, coastal erosion and flooding management strategies, sustainable mineral extraction in extreme environments, management of desertification, responses to geophysical hazards, and strategies to reduce vulnerability to climate change.  The course helps students develop skills of critical thinking by applying creative problem-solving, reflection and discernment to the interactions between people and environments, thus exploring patterns of behaviour that aid understanding of how we know what we claim to know.

Outcomes

1. Propose suitable locations for a field investigation.  Develop and justify a sound field-based hypothesis for a management strategy.  Apply ‘ways of knowing’ to develop a research context and methodology.  Implement potential risk or hazard identification.
2. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary data, and appropriate means to present them.
3. Justify acceptance or rejection of a field study hypothesis.
4. Critically reflect on problems, shortcomings and self-appraise the adequacy of a field study.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of actual and potential hazard management strategies in contrasting biophysical environments.
6. Assess the relative danger globally of geophysical hazards and climate change by applying ‘ways of knowing’.

Subject Content

• The concepts of sustainability and stewardship
• Sustainable freshwater environments
• Sustainable coastal environments
• Sustainable arid environments
• Sustainable mountain environments
• Managing geophysical hazards
• Managing climate change sustainably

This course may be offered in the following formats

• Face to Face (onsite)
• Distance/E-learning (online)

Please consult your course prospectus or enquire about how and when this course will be offered next at Alphacrucis University College.

Assessment Methods

• Field Study Hypothesis (20%)
• Field Study Report (40%)
• Major Essay (40%)