UT-403 Political Ecology

• Describe, discuss and present main global environmental issues such as the greenhouse effect and climate change, destruction of habitats and biodiversity, freshwater shortage, ozone depletion, persistent pollutants, land degradation and eutrophication as short lectures to a broad audience.
• Analyze and explain some major regional environmental issues to peers in online discussions and essays
• Discuss and evaluate some environmental assessment processes and present the results to peers using ICT media of communication
• Compare, analyse and assess different view points on interaction between environment and development in the global context, discuss these viewpoints online with peers and present the results in short lectures and essays.
• Discuss inter- relatedness of the specific elements of the environment; the relationship between environment and governance; and describe main scenarios applying ecological terms and methods.
• Discuss the main issues pertaining to sustainable environment management

• constructive examination of the major environmental outcomes of policies and practices;
• making informed strategic decisions based on development scenarios;
• collaborative work on-line and face-to-face with peers by sharing ideas, analyzing problems and finding solutions;
• summarizing and evaluating arguments
• balancing and integrating different points of view in decision making processes;
• writing academic deliverables
• environmental information communication;
• reflecting on personal learning processes and improvement of learning skills.

• Environmental and development values and ethics and be able to express this in structured presentations

• have a thorough knowledge of political ecology as a field, its emergence, theories and concepts
• have an understanding of actors involved and be able to critically analyse how they act and relate to each other
• be able to recognise and critically analyse environmental discourses and their practical consequences in relation to society and culture
• be able to discuss the connection and interaction of local, national and global process through case studies

Learner focused, socio- (collaborative) constructivist pedagogical approach, with many-to-many communication, group work, group hand-ins in addition to individual hand-ins. Group and individual studies. Peer tutoring. Instructional “mini-lectures". Individual studies of learning resources. Support from online tutor.

English

Portfolio assessment 100%. The assessment is divided into three components:
1) individual participation in group discussions in Canvas (20%)
2) a group essay (20%)
3) an individual essay (60%)

The grades A-F are used (ECTS grading scale).

Portfolio assessment (50%) including hand-ins, activities and contributions during the course. 4 days home exam that counts 50% of the final mark. A study guide and calendar will provide more detailed information at the beginning of the semester. The grades A-F are used (ECTS grading scale).

Netbased teaching through Canvas (LMS). Estimated workload, 27 hours per credit. 

Theoretical

Åke Bjørke

Available on request.

Normally first year.

First year of master's programme.