91100 Urban Sustainability and Resilience
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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks
Anti-requisite(s): 91189 Urban Sustainability and Resilience
Requisite elaboration/waiver:
This subject has no prerequisites
Description
Cities lie at the forefront of many pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and population growth. The overwhelming majority of the world's communities are concentrated in urban zones and there is escalating demand for more sustainable resources and processes, as well as healthier communities. Urban Sustainability and Resilience examines key environmental challenges and new technologies for creating sustainable cities through the future-focused lenses of science and ecology. In line with the growing employment opportunities in the urban sustainability sector, this subject takes an employability-focused approach, and aims to provide students with knowledge, understanding and attributes that are essential for working as a professional in this field.
There is a strong emphasis on transdisciplinary approaches in this subject. Government and industry engagement is key to developing an appreciation of how input from professionals from varied fields is an essential for building practical solutions to the sustainability crisis.
This subject supports flexible online learning, with content delivery through recorded lectures and expert interviews from various fields and industries, along with reflective class discussions, and assessments based around topics selected by the students themselves to facilitate development on areas of professional interest and future career directions.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
| 1. | Understand the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals relevant to Urban Systems, and show an appreciation of directions that may be taken to achieve these goals. |
|---|---|
| 2. | Understand the need for engaging transdisciplinary expertise in the process of developing sustainable and resilient systems. |
| 3. | Collaboratively research and propose best-practice solutions to achieve environmental sustainability through the application of environmental assessments, policies, planning, and urban design. |
| 4. | Understand and communicate the major issues that impact on and contribute to urban sustainability and resilience. |
| 5. | Communicate urban sustainability and resilience concepts in a convincing, clear, and concise manner and appropriate for multiple disciplines and stakeholders. |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject also contributes specifically to the development of following course intended learning outcomes:
- Demonstrate theoretical and technical knowledge of the principles of biodiversity and ecosystem function and evaluate and integrate principles of sustainability and conservation to protect biodiversity. (1.1)
- Critically evaluate scientific evidence and literature and apply effective and appropriate experimental design and analytical techniques to discover and hypothesise solutions to new and emerging environmental issues. (2.1)
- Demonstrate professionalism, including personal organisation, autonomy, teamwork, literacy and quantitative skills, while ensuring due consideration to ethical guidelines, work health and safety and environmental impact requirements. (3.1)
- Evaluate evolving concepts in environmental science and apply scientific skills to design creative solutions to contemporary or complex environmental issues by incorporating innovative methods, reflective practices, and self-directed learning. (4.1)
- Communicate effectively and professionally (oral, written, visual), generating defensible, convincing arguments for relaying research findings or articulating complex issues, concepts or skill around environmental science, within a multi-disciplinary setting. (5.1)
Contribution to the development of graduate attributes
This subject is intended to develop the following graduate attributes:
1. Disciplinary knowledge
The information presented in lectures will provide a comprehensive overview of the most pressing Urban Sustainability issues, along with introducing a range of contemporary functional and proposed solutions for these problems. An understanding of Disciplinary Knowledge will comprise part of all assessment for the portfolio learning activity.
2. Research, Inquiry and Critical Thinking
The Research Methods learned in this subject are fundamental to an Inquiry-oriented approach, necessary for the accurate application of the scientific process to environmental problems. Your understanding of the experimental process will be assessed as a component of the portfolio learning activity. Critical reflection on contemporary sustainability issues and proposed solutions is the core attribute associated with the weekly workshops, which are explicitly designed to develop the critical and objective approaches to problem solving that will be essential for addressing future sustainability.
3. Professional, Ethical and Social Responsibility
Responsibility is clearly a key component of developing sustainable solutions for the future, and as such is a core component of the subject. Balancing the decisions required for the move towards sustainability whilst maintaining professional, social and ethical responsibility will be one of the major challenges faced in the near future, and an appreciation of these factors will be a consistent assessment component throughout the subject.
4. Reflection, Innovation, Creativity
Future solutions will require new directions that reflect on current practice whilst developing truly novel approaches to problem solving. In-depth critical discussion and reflection on current and proposed solutions will develop an understanding of the thought processes involved in the development of these ideas, which will then be applied to the assessment tasks. This attribute will thus comprise the majority of the assessment criteria for the learning activities in this subject.
5. Communication
Scientific writing skills are further developed by the portfolio draft and report, the short scientific writing exercise given early in the semester, and the narrative assessment task. Formative assessment of the draft is explicitly directed at developing higher-level scientific writing skills, which are summatively assessed in the final report assessment. Considerable direction is provided for this.
Teaching and learning strategies
The material in 91100 is presented by way of interactive online materials, recorded videos, and online discussion sessions (i.e. Workshops). For most weeks, you will work through online material (1-2 h per week), along with attending a weekly 1–2 h workshop throughout the semester. There are no practical or laboratory classes in this subject.
In addition, it is expected that you engage in 1-2 h per week of independent group work weekly, either online or as face-to-face meetings as you and your team prefers.
Workshops: Disciplinary knowledge for this subject is built by way of engagement with the material, and most importantly, contributing to reflective discussions in the linked Workshops. The weekly Workshops are designed to also give you the opportunity to directly ask for clarification about the material in real time, which has been shown to help most students learn and understand the material, and how it relates to the assessment tasks. Students who attend the workshops throughout the semester generally achieve better results than those who don’t, or try and watch the recordings all at once at the end of semester when a major assessment task is due.
Self-directed field work: In this subject, you will collaboratively select, observe and analyse features of urban areas of your own choice, rate them for sustainable practice, and develop solutions to improve on what is currently being done. This may involve self-directed visits to various sites, at your discretion.
Team learning: In this subject you will complete a collaborative project as part of a team of 3 students. This exercise is meant to help your development as a collaborative scientist, and is a very close approximation of how we perform real research (only without the laboratory work this time). Developing your collaborative skills is one of the most important things you will learn during your course, and this project will help you build on the basic projects developed in first year, and give you experience to help you with the more advanced work you will do in your final year, and thereafter in your career.
Content (topics)
Material will include subjects such as: the UN Sustainable Development Goal program, sustainable materials, water recycling, urban heat island mitigation, urban air pollution and mitigation, human, plant and animal epidemic control, renewable energy, waste and landfill reduction, carbon neutrality and trading, food security, biosecurity, and sampling for environmental assessment. Specific details of the material presented will vary on short time scales, dependent on the current world situation.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Portfolio written assessment
| Intent: | This assessment task contributes to the development of the following graduate attributes: 1 Disciplinary Knowledge 2 Research, inquiry and critical thinking 3 Professional, ethical and social responsibility 4 Reflection, Innovation, Creativity 5 Communication |
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| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses subject learning objective(s): 1, 2, 3 and 4 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1 and 5.1 |
| Type: | Case study |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Criteria: | Adherence to length, format, referencing scheme Logic and flow Appropriate presentation and communication Level of critical thinking evident
A detailed marking scheme will be provided during semester explaining the requirements of this Assessment. |
Assessment task 2: Portfolio multimedia assessment
| Intent: | This assessment addresses the following graduate attributes: 1 Disciplinary Knowledge 2 Research, inquiry and critical thinking 3 Professional, ethical and social responsibility 5 Communication |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses subject learning objective(s): 2, 3, 4 and 5 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 1.1, 2.1, 3.1 and 5.1 |
| Type: | Case study |
| Groupwork: | Group, group assessed |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Criteria: | Adherence to length if appropriate Logic and flow Appropriate presentation and communication Level of critical thinking evident Peer review A detailed marking scheme will be provided during semester explaining the requirements of this Assessment. |
Assessment task 3: Narrative
| Intent: | This assessment item addresses the following graduate attributes: 4 Reflection, Innovation, Creativity 5 Communication |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses subject learning objective(s): 4 and 5 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 4.1 and 5.1 |
| Type: | Reflection |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 40% |
| Criteria: | 25% of this learning activity will be assessed on adherence to length, format, referencing scheme, logic and flow, appropriate presentation and communication. The majority of the marks are allocated to how the student has reflected on the material, the level of critical thinking evident, and the application of initiative and innovative thought in bringing the material together. |
Minimum requirements
You are expected to view all lectures during the semester, on or around the week on which they are released. This is to ensure that you have the requisite understanding to develop high quality portfolios and narrative reports.
You are strongly encouraged to attend and engage in the discussion sessions during the semester to enhance your learning.
Recommended texts
A textbook may be useful, especially if Urban Sustainability is a possible employment field. Texts will be updated periodically. Examples of typical textbooks and readings include:
Adler, Frederick and Tanner, Colby. Urban Ecosystems: Ecological Principles for the Built Environment. Cambridge University Press. 2013.
Barnett, Jonathan and Beasley, Larry. Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs. Island Press. 2016.
Bulkeley, Harriet and Betsill, Michele. Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance. Routledge. 2005.
Douglas, Ian and James, Philip. Urban Ecology: An Introduction. Routledge. 2015.
Farr, Douglas. Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature. Island Press. November 2007.
Filion, P., Moos, M., Vinodrai, T. and Walker, R. (ed.). Canadian Cities in Transition: Perspectives for an Urban Age. 5th Edition. Oxford University Press. 2015.
Forman, Richard. Urban Ecology: Science of Cities. Cambridge University Press. 2014.
Francis, Robert A. and Chadwick, Michael. Urban Ecosystems: Understanding the Human Environment. Routledge. 2013.
Gould, Kenneth A. and Lewis, Tammy L. Green Gentrification: Urban Sustainability and the Struggle for Environmental Justice. 2017.
James, Paul. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of Sustainability. Routledge. 2014.
Palazzo, Danilo and Steiner, Frederick. Urban Ecological Design: A Process for Regenerative Places. Island Press. 2011.
Ragazzi, Marco. Improving Urban Environments: Strategies for Healthier and More Sustainable Cities. Apple Academic Press. 2016.
Ruddick, Margie. Wild By Design: Strategies For Creating Life-Enhancing Landscapes. Island Press. 2016.
The Worldwatch Institute. Can a City Be Sustainable? Island Press. 2016.
U.N. Habitat. Cities and Climate Change: Global Report on Human Settlements 2011. United Nations. 2011.