91145 Environmental Protection and Management
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Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks
Requisite(s): 91154c Ecology
The lower case 'c' after the subject code indicates that the subject is a corequisite. See definitions for details.
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses. See access conditions.
Description
Human use of the Earth's natural environment has an undeniable impact on ecosystems and biodiversity, and shapes society through its effects on incomes and livelihood, human health, global climate, and recreation and culture. Environmental protection and management practices apply scientific principles to plan for, and mitigate the effects of, human activity on the environment to ensure provision of ecosystem goods and services into the future.
This subject applies the student's knowledge of ecological science to a range of challenging topics, focusing on human use of the environment. The student reviews challenging environmental issues, is introduced to approaches in environmental protection and management, investigates the role and contribution of science to environmental decision making, and explores the development of solutions to environmental issues. The subject is taught by lectures, seminars and workshops, developed especially to prepare those wishing to enter environmental science as a profession with essential skill development opportunities. The lectures and workshops are highly interactive, using discussion groups, groupwork, writing tasks and peer-to-peer presentations to explore topics. Seminars feature industry and academic experts in the field of environmental management who speak on a range of contemporary environmental issues.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
| 1. | Identify current environmental issues in both Australia and in global environments, and explain approaches for environmental protection and management. |
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| 2. | Articulate the complexity of environmental issues and appreciate the different positions and perceptions of stakeholders. |
| 3. | Describe the contribution of science to the development of laws, guidelines and policies developed for environmental protection and management in Australia and globally. |
| 4. | Use critical thinking and reading skills and apply an evidence-based approach to environmental problem-solving, including distinguishing opinion from scientific evidence. |
| 5. | Engage in respectful and thoughtful discussions which encourage curiosity, alternative viewpoints, giving and receiving feedback. Contribute meaningfully to a team through collaboration, developing organisation and project management skills. |
| 6. | Communicate clearly, logically and succinctly in written and spoken formats. |
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
The faculty of science lists six graduate attributes that you will develop during your course at UTS. This subject contributes to the development of the following five graduate attributes:
1. DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE
- Environmental protection and management practices and their application to environmental issues are learned through lectures, readings, discussion groups, and presentations from industry experts. Your learning is assessed by quizzes, critical reviews and an issues report.
2. RESEARCH, INQUIRY AND CRITICAL THINKING
- Environmental problems are multi-dimensional and your ability to look deeply and widely to investigate the issue and thinking beyond the facts is crucial to working in environmental science professions. You will develop the ability to form arguments and critique evidence associated with your inquiry through class discussions and small group activities in the workshop. You will follow a line of inquiry through as part of your Issues Report, where you will choose a topic, discuss the range of issues contributing to the problem and research and critique evidence for possible solutions. You will also probe deeply into provided readings, to ask questions of the evidence provided by the authors and write arguments to support your position. Your learning of this graduate attribute is demonstrated by the depth, extent and originality of the written critical reviews and report, and the extent to which this approach is displayed in your participation in workshop discussions.
3. PROFESSIONAL, ETHICAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- A career in environmental sciences is sure to include reports, papers, presentations and robust discussions with others. Written assignments, such as critical reviews, will develop your skills in written communication and develop your argument style. Presentations in front of peers during workshops will develop public speaking capabilities. Giving and receiving feedback is encouraged, and you will have the opportunity to learn the intricacies of this skill. Instruction in these methods of communication will be provided during workshops. Learning will be assessed through the quality of critical reviews (according to marking criteria available to you ahead of time), teaching associate’s assessment of your participation in class discussions and activities as documented by in-class worksheets and exercises, participation in the Week 12 poster session and peer assessments of oral presentations.
- Personal attributes such as responsibility and integrity, curiosity and engagement are important in any workplace. These qualities will be developed through workshop activities, discussions and groupwork. Learning will be assessed by peer-evaluation and tutor’s assessment of your contributions.
- Hearing from industry and academic experts during seminars, and engaging with the case studies in lectures and workshops will expand your understanding of how scientific practices contribute to environmental protection and management. A range of contemporary Australian and global environmental examples will consider social and economic perspectives as factors to the success of environmental management activities. You will be presented with specific examples during lectures and seminars, however, you will also also develop this understanding through curation of a set of media articles on environmental issues. Your learning is assessed by the level of integration of ideas presented in quiz answers, the depth of analysis in the issues report, and from evidence of understanding of these perspectives presented in the workshop exercises.
- Your understanding of how science interacts with society in part will be learned through a workshop focused on how scientists can participate in shaping and influencing community views. Peers will provide feedback about this learning after participating in an informal class presentation.
4. REFLECTION, INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY
- As an environmental science professional you will often be asked to identify emerging environmental issues and propose solutions to environmental problems. You will develop this skill by preparing the issues report on a topic of your own choice.You will prepare a briefing note identifying an environmental issue and discuss the costs and benefits of options for addressing this issue.
- You will be provided opportunities to reflect upon and improve your work. For each of the critical reviews you will be able to resubmit your work after receiving feedback.
5. COMMUNICATION
- A range of activities have been designed to assist you in excelling in various communication formats. You will have the opportunity to learn skills necessary to present critical analyses in written form during workshops, where you will learn how to frame a good argument which provides evidence to support your position. Learning is assessed by submission of your own written critical reviews of contentious environmental issues using material from prescribed readings, and marked according to provided criteria. You will receive early feedback on your critical review drafts during workshops, via peers marking your paper according to the assessment criteria. Marks are given in compliance with standard writing conventions, grammar and spelling, for the originality of your perspective, your ability to synthesize and critique information, the construction of your arguments, and the relevance of the evidence you have gathered, articulated in clear marking criteria.
- Verbal communication skills will be developed in a range of activities during the workshops. You will be required to synthesize information from discussions to present evidence supporting a point of view. You will have the opportunity to learn components of effective verbal communication during workshops, and practice these during groupwork exercises throughout the subject. You will use your communication skills in a variety of settings (discussions, debates, role playing, poster session talks). This skill is assessed by marking criteria that distinguish effective presentation skills and participation.
Teaching and learning strategies
You will learn by way of independent learning activities, lectures, seminars and workshops.
INDEPENDENT LEARNING ACTIVITIES:
Critical writing is a specific, but important, skill for your scientific career and is different to most other forms of writing you have done before. In this subject, learning of this skill is scaffolded from early in the session, beginning with the benchmarking activity in Week 2 using SPARK+, introduced in the first workshop and completed outside of class. The task requires you to grade critical reviews of de-identified student submissions from previous years, using the same assessment criteria on which your own critical review will be graded. Results are reviewed in a subsequent workshop, allowing you to reflect on where your comprehension sits relative to the benchmark. You will apply what you have learned from the benchmarking exercise and in-class activities to develop, on your own time, a draft of a critical review on a given topic. You will receive feedback from your peers, which you will apply as you refine your review into a final version, submitted through Canvas. By completing the benchmarking exercise you will be eligible to review and apply the feedback from the teaching associate before resubmitting your report your final version. You will reflect on how you will apply the feedback to modify your critical review, in line with the marking criteria. This reflection and the revised critical review can be resubmitted to Canvas. If you do not complete the benchmarking exercise you will not be eligible to resubmit your report.
You will complete online pre-lecture or post-seminar activities to assist your learning and understanding of topics covered in the week’s sessions. These activities will help prepare you for lectures, will also help consolidate your learning and provide you with opportunities to test your ideas by being provided with formative feedback from your peers. Information and links to these activities can be accessed via Canvas. You will need to check the announcements at least once a week.
You will also complete a two-page report, on a topic of your own choosing, in your own time. The format of the structure will be introduced and scaffolded during class time, and you will use your experience in the class to develop your own idea for the Environmental Briefing Note in your own time. You will use the assessment rubric to self-assess against the marking criteria to ensure you have developed a high quality report.
LECTURES AND SEMINARS:
Lecturers are highly experienced in the area of government policy and science, the area where environmental protection and management takes place. Lecturers bring their own research and professional experience to the lectures, setting your learning in context of the bigger picture of life as an environmental scientist. An inquiry-based approach is taken in lectures and seminars, which ask: “given the context of this particular issue, what are the factors that will contribute to potential solutions, implementation, and success of the management actions?” You will learn to curate and analyse current media articles on environmental issues, which will be used to fuel discussion during lectures and workshops. You will source articles between lectures and we will discuss what you’ve found in the next lecture. We do not have a specific textbook, rather you will be provided with material prior to the lectures (and workshops). Because the lectures and seminars have minimal text, you will need to take notes as we go along, usually by annotating the slide series. There will be one hour of lecture each week, and one hour of seminars (guest lecturers) once every two weeks (5 seminars total). Your attendance is crucial to a full understanding of the subject content and to developing critical skills.
WORKSHOPS:
Workshops have been the highlight of students in past years. We engage in debates, discussions, exercises and role playing activities to deepen your learning from the lectures. You will work collaboratively in groups to engage with the week’s material and develop solutions to the week’s problem together. You will be involved in a variety of presentation formats, including debates, formal and information oral presentations and poster sessions. You will use exercises and discussions in the group to develop specific skills crucial for your assessment tasks and to your development as a scientist.
A field trip during WEEK 1 will prepare you for the subject by providing an opportunity for you to see, first hand, a variety of environmental protection and management situations in the greater Sydney area. The information from the tour leader(s) and observations from the field trip sites will be used to complete a worksheet. This worksheet will be useful to you as a reference for future activities and tasks in the subject. The same field trip will be offered on two separate dates during WEEK 1. You will elect to attend one of these dates through a registration process on Canvas.
As the workshops provide practical engagement with the subject material, you are strongly encouraged to attend all workshops, including the field trip in Week 1. You are expected to work together with a group to complete the activities during the session. In class, you will need to write notes, respond to questions, and frequently you will be asked to participate in oral and online discussions.
An aim of this subject is to help you develop academic and professional language and communication skills to succeed at university and in the workplace. During the course of this subject, you will complete a milestone assessment task that will, in addition to assessing your subject-specific learning objectives, assess your English language proficiency.
Content (topics)
You will learn about approaches to environmental protection and management in the context of a global society. We begin by looking at the factors contributing to environmental decision making and how this impacts on choice of approach to managing the environment. We learn about relevant legislation governing environmental management, the actors involved in environmental management, and procedures for studying environmental issues. We investigate how science contributes to environmental decision making and critically evaluate underpinning scientific research. We will hear from industry representatives and academics about inspiring and challenging experiences in environmental protection and management. Throughout the subject, you will learn about environmental protection and management in context of the Australia of today – you will learn about the technical (scientific) dimensions of protecting the environment, and equally, the importance of understanding the role society plays on scientific inquiry and action on the environment.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Critical reviews of environmental issues
| 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 5. Communication |
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| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses subject learning objective(s): 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 1.1, 2.1, 3.1 and 5.1 |
| Type: | Essay |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Length: | 500 words |
| Criteria: | The first workshop will provide instructions on preparation of critical reviews, will explain assessment criteria and provide opportunities to practise the skills needed to compose a critical review. Thorough guidelines on writing the critical review are laid out in the material provided during the first workshop. The detailed assessment criteria are also available on Canvas., which will be used for marking the reports and provides details on how this assessment achieves the graduate attributes. This means that you must access the criteria required to complete a high quality critical review before you begin the assessment. By using these criteria to mark exemplar reviews, you understand what is required for a high quality issues report before you begin writing your own. Note that a student who submits a critical review that is detected to contain plagiarized work (copied from another student, the internet or another source) will be penalized according to university rules. Such action may result in a zero mark for the task. |
Assessment task 2: Critical factors in Environmental Protection and Management
| 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 scoial responsibility 4. Reflection, innovation and creativity |
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| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses subject learning objective(s): 1 and 2 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 1.1, 2.1, 3.1 and 4.1 |
| Type: | Quiz/test |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Criteria: | These quizzes evaluate knowledge, and comprehension, and your ability to synthesize different components from lectures, seminars and workshops. You will also be required to provide a short response to an online question asking you to reflect upon what you have learnt in the seminars presented by industry professionals. |
Assessment task 3: Environmental Briefing Note
| 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 and creativity 5. Communication |
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| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses subject learning objective(s): , 1, 2 and 3 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: | Report |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 40% |
| Length: | Maximum 2 pages, single spaced, 12 point font. |
| Criteria: | Thorough guidelines on writing the Environmental Briefing Note will be laid out in the material provided during the first workshop. You are strongly encouraged to utilise notes or concepts from discussions held in class to frame your recommendation in your report. Assessment criteria are outlined in a detailed marking rubric, which can be used to self-evaluate how your report meets the expectations. Additional information will be available through Canvas. As part of this assessment you will produce a poster as a draft of your Environmental Briefing Note. You will present this poster and receive feedback in the week 11 workshop.The poster will be worth 5% of the 40% weighting for the assessment. The Environmental Briefing Note will be worth 35% This task includes a milestone assessment component that evaluates English language proficiency. You may be guided to further language support after the completion of this subject if your results in this milestone task indicate you need more help with your language skills. |
Minimum requirements
It is strongly recommened that you attend all lectures, seminars and workshops, including the field trip scheduled in Week 1. Your performance in the subject may be impaired if you do not attend.
Every activity offered in this subject is an essential and integral part of the subject. In addition to assisting your understanding of concepts, they develop important interactive and critical thinking skills desired by employers.
English language proficiency: It is a requirement of this subject that you complete the Environmental Briefing Note. Should you receive an unsatisfactory English language level, you may be required to complete further language support after the completion of this subject.
Required texts
Required reading will be provided to you through Canvas. There is no required textbook.
Recommended texts
You are encouraged to read widely in this field, in particular, journal articles and current affairs publications.
Recommendations will be made during the course of the subject.
Other recommended publications:
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2017. 4655.0 - Australian Environmental-Economic Accounts, 2017. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra.
Easton TA (ed) (2013) Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Environmental Issues 15th Ed (McGraw Hill, New York).
Harding, R, Hendriks, C, Faruqi, M. (2009) Environmental decision-making : exploring complexity and context. (Federation Press, Annandale NSW). 400 p.
Jackson WJ, Argent RM, Bax NJ, Bui E, Clark GF, Coleman S, Cresswell ID, Emmerson KM, Evans K, Hibberd MF, Johnston EL, Keywood MD, Klekociuk A, Mackay R, Metcalfe D, Murphy H, Rankin A, Smith DC, Wienecke B (2016). Overview: Overview. In: Australia state of the environment 2016, Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, Canberra, DOI 10.4226/94/58b65510c633b
Other resources
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http://www.uts.edu.au/current-students/support/helps/about-helps