Spatial Implications of Environmental Change

Course manual 2020/2021

Course content

The climate and the environment is changing at an increasing pace, and at the root of these changes is human action. The scientific community now even speaks of a historical epoch called the Anthropocene. It is a period in history when humans' impact on the planet is greater than any other natural process. Humans have spread across the world in ever-increasing numbers and have physically changed the landscape of the earth. This course considers several different fields of environmental change as the main focus of the first period. In the second period, we will investigate local/urban implications and responses to environmental change. 

Of course, environmental problems are, by definition, human constructs. Nature is always in flux. Think, for instance, of the ice ages. For nature in general, change is a fact of life. However, the fact that the changes are occurring so rapidly and impact human livelihoods are the main reasons humans consider environmental change a problem. Therefore, it is in the interaction between social and natural systems that we must turn our theoretical lenses. Theories such as Social-Ecological Systems, Political Ecology, and Environmental Justice will be used to understand these complex relations between society and nature, and concepts such as risk, climate governance, ecological modernization, and institutionalization will be studied as individual and collective reactions to environmental change.

Study materials

Literature

• Academic Articles (available on Canvas), and

  Moseley et al. (2014) An Introduction to Human-Environment Geography: Local Dynamics and Global Processes. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell

Objectives

• Students are able to critically reflect on environmental changes and their relation with social and physical processes.
• Students have an understanding of different theoretical perspectives and be able to use them to reflect on environmental changes.
• Students understand the role of space and geography in analysing these changes.
• Students have an understanding of the existence of institutional arrangements (from local to global) and their functioning in serving the solution of environmental problems.
• Students are able to reflect on their own actions and their consequences for social-ecological systems.

Teaching methods

• Lecture
• Seminar

This course has a lecture+tutorial format in which the tutorials are used to solidify further the knowledge presented in the lecture. The approach will differ per tutorial, but the goal for you is to make sure you understand the course material and the lecture correctly. This requires an active engagement with the material, with your fellow students, and with the lecturers. Read the texts before the main lecture, reread the texts before the tutorial and exam.

The lectures will not be recorded

Learning activities

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):

• Participation in fieldwork is compulsory and cannot be replaced by assignments or other courses.
• In case of practical sessions, the student is obliged to attend at least of 90% of the sessions and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the practical sessions should be redone entirely.
• In case of tutorials/seminars with assignments, the student is obliged to attend at least 7 out of 8 seminars and to prepare thoroughly for these meetings, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. If the course has more than 8 seminars, the student can miss up to 1 extra meeting for every (part of) 8 tutorials/seminars. If the students attends less than the mandatory tutorials/seminars, the course cannot be completed.

Additional requirements for this course:

You are expected to prepare and participate during class, as a basic course requirement. Most of the tutorials have a standard format and will facilitate a discussion about the compulsory literature for that week. You are allowed to miss one tutorial. Each additional missed tutorial without the approval of your tutorial lecturer will lead to the subtraction of 1 full point of the final grade. There are two tutorials (the ones before the written exams) in which students are expected to take part in a collective learning session.

You are required to give a presentation that must be assessed as sufficient. 

See Canvas for a more detailed description. 

Assessment

The final grade is based on two components:

1. Preparation assignments (30%): For each tutorial, you are required to submit preparatory assignments on the literature through Perusall. The software will grade your contribution. 

2. Examination (70%): There will be an exam on all the course material (lectures, readings, tutorials) at the end of the first and second periods. Together they form one grade and, as such, can compensate each other.  

Assessment requirements & criteria:

Calculation: 70% exam, 30% two preparation assignments = 100% grade

The exam (the two parts combined) needs to be a minimum of 5,5 to pass the course. This is also true for the combined grade of the graded assignments.

You are required to get a pass for the presentation. 

 There is no additional limitation to taking the retake. The grade for the retake will be the grade for the exam and overwrite the other exam grades. Take note that the retake is about all the materials of the whole course.

Inspection of assessed work

The moments of inspection for the exams will be communicated through Canvas.

Date final grade

The final grade will be announced within 15 workdays after the last deadline.

Feedback

The exam will be graded, and you will have the opportunity to look at your answers and ask questions if you have difficulty understanding what the answer was supposed to be. This will be arranged within two weeks of the publication of the results.  The tutorial lecturers are there to help when you feel you might not completely grasp the subject, but it is your responsibility to ask them to help.

Assignments

There are assignments per article per topic. 

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Last year's course evaluation

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student evaluations to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Contact information

Coordinator

• dr. M. Giezen

Staff

• J. van der Klei
• J.V. Rothuizen
• Ruben Weesie