2015/16 Undergraduate Module Catalogue
SOEE3770 Sustainable Futures
20 creditsClass Size: 80
Module manager: Dr Julia Steinberger
Email: J.K.Steinberger@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2015/16
Pre-requisite qualifications
Candidates should have completed either GEOG1065 or SOEE1110Pre-requisites
GEOG1065 | Nature, Society and Environment |
SOEE1110 | Sustainable Development |
This module is approved as a discovery module
Module summary
This module acts as a culmination of the three years of the degree programme, and gets students to bring together ideas and approaches from across all three years of their studies, to see how they fit together. It also gets students to look forwards, to see what sustainability challenges might be emerging in coming years, how they might be solved, particularly how the issues covered in their degree might help tackle such challenges.Objectives
-To outline the general challenges for creating sustainable futures-To explore the complexities and interdisciplinary challenges to sustainability in several key areas
-To present current cutting edge research and outline upcoming challenges in sustainability in future years and decades
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, students will be able to
-Understand the key challenges to creating sustainable societies at a range of spatial and temporal scales
-Have a synoptic view of the challenges within sustainability, and how these can be approached from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and how they might interact
-Have a knowledge of cutting edge research in sustainability
-Critically analyse forthcoming issues in sustainability
-Critically analyse academic literature in an advanced manner
Skills outcomes
Advanced independent critical thought
Syllabus
Part one of this module covers the broad general challenges to creating sustainable societies, such as the need for interdisciplinary thinking, complexity and wicked problems, challenges of working across spatial and temporal scales. Part two explores challenges to sustainability in particular themed areas, such as agriculture, cities. Part three draws on current research conducted within the school to explore current and future challenges in depth. In addition, students will be encouraged to engage with broader research related activities taking place within the school, such as departmental seminars. Overall, the module encourages students to think across their three years of study, and to engage with current research and future issues.
Teaching methods
Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
Lecture | 18 | 1.00 | 18.00 |
Seminar | 3 | 1.00 | 3.00 |
Private study hours | 179.00 | ||
Total Contact hours | 21.00 | ||
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200.00 |
Private study
Students will be expected to conduct their own reading, both following the reading list and independently.In addition, students will be expected to form their own tutorial discussion groups to discuss the issues raised within classes. Staff will facilitate this by providing VLE resources to help groups form, and by providing questions for discussion within groups at the end of each lecture. Given that there are few such discussion tutorials within SOEE, the first 3 will be timetabled and the discussion will be facilitated by a teaching assistant.
Students will be encouraged to attend departmental seminars as part of the module.
Methods of assessment
Coursework
Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
Essay | 2,000 words | 40.00 |
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 40.00 |
Assignment 1 will be due in early January. This will be a broadly worded essay which requires students to think broadly across the degree whilst integrating some of the concepts discussed in lectures. It might re-use the essay title used successfully in the old version of SOEE3420 (“What are the greatest challenges to achieving sustainable development today and why? Provide examples and literary evidence to support your ideas and using examples, outline ways in which they might be overcome”). To support this, students will be provided with clear guidance in the handbook and in lectures on what is required for this kind of essay, what is likely to make a good or bad answer. This kind of question will help prepare students for the kind of broad questions requiring synoptic thinking across themes which will be in the final exam.
Exams
Exam type | Exam duration | % of formal assessment |
Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc) | 3 hr 00 mins | 60.00 |
Total percentage (Assessment Exams) | 60.00 |
Students will be presented with a list of 6 questions, of which they have to answer 2. Students will have 3 hours. The questions will be broad in nature, encouraging students to think across their degree course, and to write 2 structured essays. In writing these essays, they will be expected to draw upon ideas and readings from this module, and from across the 3 years of study.
Reading list
There is no reading list for this moduleLast updated: 31/07/2015
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- Undergraduate module catalogue
- Taught Postgraduate module catalogue
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