Unit Synopsis
The impacts of human populations on the natural environment are well studied but little progress has been made to improve the sustainability of our lifestyle due to the complex interactions among social, economic and environmental imperatives. In Sustainability Issues and Solutions you will investigate the impact of human activities on a range of living and non-living, renewable and non-renewable natural resources. By applying 'Systems Thinking' you will practise developing solutions that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. On completion of this unit you will have a broad appreciation of the balances underpinning both temporal and spatial variation in sustainability and human efforts to control these.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Minimum of 72 credit points
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 1 - 2026
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).
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 | 20% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 30% |
| 3. Written Assessment | 40% |
| 4. Group Discussion | 10% |
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%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 3 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 25.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 25% 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: Staff reflections
Review assessment and content
All content and assessment items should be reviewed during the unit update.
Assessment has been updated and content refresh continues.
Source: SUTE
Assessments required significant effort but had relatively low weighting, and the number of short assessments made it challenging to present findings in depth.
Consider reducing the number of assessments while increasing their word limits and weighting to better reflect effort. Consider assessment timing.
In Progress
Source: SUTE
Some assessment instructions were unclear, and exemplars did not fully align with expectations, leading to confusion.
Ensure that instructions and exemplars are consistent and provide additional clarification where needed.
In Progress
Source: SUTE
Some resources felt outdated or not directly useful for assessments, and there was uncertainty about using lecture content in assignments.
Review and update materials where needed, clarify how lecture content can be used.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Discuss the economic, ethical and ecological issues associated with the sustainable utilisation of the earth's renewable and non-renewable natural resources.
- Explain the importance of systems thinking and an understanding of temporal and spatial scales and feedback loops in determining solutions to sustainable management of resources.
- Discuss the shortcomings in our understanding and acceptance of the processes that lead to sustainability.
- Develop a range of possible strategies that would help to ensure the sustainable utilisation of natural resources.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | ||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | ||
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | ||
| 4 - Group Discussion | • | • | ||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | • |
| 5 - Team Work | • | |||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | |||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | • | • | |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | • | • |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | • | |||||
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||||
| 4 - Group Discussion | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||||