Reshaping Environments

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

170 Hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject explores how environments shape us and we humans reshape the environment. It examines human attitudes to, impacts on and interactions with the environments in which we live by considering ‘natural', transformed and built environments as sites of production and consumption, imagining and contest, in different parts of the globe. The subject considers the material relationship between the natural and built environments by exploring issues of resource use. Human demands for water, energy, food, fibres and minerals, will be examined in relation to the technologies and practices used to meet those needs, and the resulting creation of waste and pollution and impacts on climate and a range of ecosystems and species. These issues and processes will be presented and considered using thematic, geographically varied, historic and contemporary examples. The subject will operate at three ‘scales' including: ‘natural' landscapes and their ecosystems; cities and the urban environment; buildings.

At the conclusion of the subject students should be able to:

• Discuss and critique ideas of sustainability;
• Identify and describe the physical and social needs of humans and non-human species within their environments;
• Identify and describe the ways that humans re-shape their environments to suit needs, expectations, and ethics;
• Identify and describe the ways that economic, social and environmental norms shape environmentally significant action;
• Identify, describe as a system, and detect the physical and social consequences of human efforts to reshape their environments;
• Discuss how human-environment relationships and interactions have impacts for sustainability, future environmental design, norms and management.

• Reflective journal throughout semester totalling approximately 1000 words; weekly entries assessed in Week 4 and Week 11 (20%)
• Tutorial participation during the semester (10%)
• Team analysis and diagram (1000 words/team), due Week 9 (20%)
• Individual written response (2500 words), due Monday of the first week of the examination period (50%)

Bender, Helena (ed.) (2012) Reshaping environments: an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability in a complex world, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

At the completion of this subject students should have developed the following skills:

• Basic analytical skills for observing human-environment interactions
• Skills for the observation and interpretation of practices which transform natural and urban environments
• Skills in synthesising, reporting on and discussing issues relevant to this subject