Module Information

The module provides students with a foundational understanding of key terms, ideas and contemporary debates related to understanding, monitoring and responding to environmental change. The first half focuses on introductory concepts and terminology allowing us to talk about environmental change, and the latter half on the psychology of environmental change and imagining alternative futures. The role of different forms of scientific study (natural, social and psychological sciences) in underpinning contemporary debates and attempts to manage 'change' is foregrounded.

It has two strands. Weekly lectures are organised in thematic blocks (see below) and focus on debates, terminology, and baseline knowledge about the biophysical world and humanity’s relationships within it necessary for higher education degree study. Workshops focus on analytical skills and the role of disciplinary methods for understanding forms of environmental change.

Whilst the module is compulsory for students studying for a science degree in DGES or Psychology it is written to be of relevance to a much wider array of degree schemes.

Content is delivered via two 1 hour lectures a week, workshops, and a full day field trip.

LECTURES focus on ideas, terms, debates and linking the themes of the teaching blocks to the subject disciplinary interests of the students.

Teaching blocks are organised around the following blocks:
1. Environmental history and frameworks for understanding and managing the environment
2. Resources, risk and scarcity
3. Environmental psychology, trauma, resilience and solutions
4. EcoGeddon and ecotopia

WORKSHOPS focus on methods for understanding forms and impacts of environmental change based on a field project students undertake before Easter. They will:

1. Consider the utility of different ways of knowing the world through forms of data collection typical for different disciplines - and their limitations.
2. Examine pre-prepared data and materials about conservation sites in the Dyfi Biosphere Reserve from an array of perspectives (UNESCO designation, cultural and economic value, geological and habitat maps, indicator species) to enable students to extract material relevant for their own project report.
3. Examine ways of gathering data for a field project (depending on project chosen ranging from biological recording - to site mapping - to psychological data techniques) that examines the measuring of environmental change and the place of nature in the social world at these sites.
4. Design and implement a simple and realistic research project to be conducted during the field trip. The emphasis is on collecting data, analysing it and presenting it in a written report format. Learning outcomes emphasise the need for rigour in data collection and analysis.

> Field Trip to local nature reserve
A focal point for skills development and practice is a site visit and research project at a local nature reserve towards the end of Semester 2. Each student project will be suitable for their chosen degree of study.

Example methods students may use include bird and plant species observation (e.g. forms of transect), habitat mapping, examination of a historical landscape feature (remains of a castle) at the reserve, impact of nature upon cognition, memory and wellbeing using experimental methods.

The report will identify: site description, purpose of data collection, methods used (including ethical factors and limitations of methods chosen), result analysis and visualization, conclusions. Reports will include some element of quantitative data and presentation.