ECON19031 - Environmental Economics

General Information

Unit Synopsis

Resource use and environmental issues are difficult for society to evaluate and balance. You will be introduced to some of the most important economic concepts that relate to environmental issues, and provide a framework for evaluating policy choices. Among the topics you will cover are project and policy assessment tools, environmental valuation and accounting methods, and the efficiency of different institutions and mechanisms that guide environmental choices.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 2
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisite: Minimum of 24 Units

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2024

Term 2 - 2024 Profile
Online
Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Online

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 30%
2. Written Assessment 30%
3. Written Assessment 40%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 66.67% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 17.65% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student Evaluation Survey
Feedback
Update lecture materials
Recommendation
It is recommended that the lecture material be updated over the forthcoming terms. Lecture slides are to include more multimedia elements such as images and video for engaging diverse learners.
Action Taken
An effort was made to update learning resources including multimedia elements, images, and videos.
Source: Student Evaluation Survey
Feedback
Reduce the optional readings
Recommendation
The unit Moodle page contains recommended and optional reading materials. It would be useful to make a distinction between these two types of resources for greater clarity of unit expectations.
Action Taken
This distinction was made clear and students were communicated about this during classes.
Source: Self-reflection
Feedback
Continue to update learning materials
Recommendation
It is recommended that the Unit Coordinator continue to update lecture material and learning resources to reflect contemporary policy issues covered in the Unit.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. identify how market mechanisms work to allocate resources, and how markets and ecological mechanisms can be viewed in a systems approach
  2. demonstrate that many environmental problems arise because of market failure and government failure problems, leading to inadequate signalling and incentive mechanisms used in society to allocate resources
  3. identify different approaches to evaluating environmental issues
  4. understand how valuation of environmental impacts can allow more accurate assessment of environmental issues
  5. develop an understanding of environmental accounting and impact assessment methodologies
  6. understand how there are a variety of ways of viewing and using sustainable development concepts
  7. develop an understanding of the potential for market-based instruments to help in addressing environmental problems.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 - Written Assessment • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 - Communication • • • • • • •
2 - Problem Solving • • • • • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • • • • • •
6 - Information Technology Competence • • • • • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Written Assessment • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • •