The Mission
The purpose of the course is to present a general introduction to some basic concepts of environment and sustainability. It develops skills in thinking holistically, understanding systems and strategies for action and problem solving.
The expected learning outcome is to practice and achieve some skills within the following five key competences:
- Systems thinking competence
- Anticipatory competence
- Normative competence
- Strategic competence
- Interpersonal competence
To teacher/course coordinator
The Mission is designed to function both as a campus course and an online course. For the students it is basically self-instructing, but it needs some attention from you as a teacher. We recommend you to set deadlines for each task and to divide the class in groups.
Group work is central to the learning process and a climate of cooperation will benefit the outcomes.
Exercises
The following exercises (1-6) are designed to be solved both individually and in groups.
1) A mini ecosystem
You will create your own mini ecosystem. The bottle can be used to demonstrate some of the basic interactions in large-scale ecosystems as well as the entire biosphere.
Find instructions here.
2) The Mission
You have been selected to plan and participate in the greatest adventure in the history of mankind - to equip a spaceship for a journey across space.
Find instructions here.
3) Criteria for sustainability
Together we define prerequisites for sustainability.
Find instructions here.
4) Challenges
Your spaceship face some serious challenges. We discuss what could have been done differentley and what actions to take.
Find instructions here.
5) Conclusions | examination
Throughout the journey, we have gained some new insights. It is time to summarize what we have learned.
Find instructions here.
6) Reflections | examination
The final task is to reflect on to what extent the objectives of the course and the desired competences for sustainability have been trained and achieved.
Find instructions here.