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Study online with Curtin University through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

This course is a relaunch of the Master of Sustainability and Climate Policy. It develops knowledge, understanding and appreciation of what it means to live within nature and our planetary boundaries. In a sense, it goes beyond sustainability and has developed out of the recent extinction rebellion and climate strike movements. The resultant Environment and Climate Emergency is increasingly accepted as policy by national, state and local governmental authorities worldwide. The course aligns with Curtin’s strategy of demand-driven research introducing a strong emphasis on research in a master by coursework to address a rapidly diversifying economy reflecting on a competitive job market and changes in students’ interests. To that purpose, the teaching and learning approach seeks to expose students to real-world practice and challenges while favouring familiarisation with industry and local governments’ expectations when hiring graduates. The course will graduate global citizens to affect change.

Study urban design, sustainable cities, leadership, Aboriginal sustainability, decarbonising cities and regions, climate policy and economics. Graduates find careers in sectors where social research and analytical skills in sustainability are required.

Master of Environment and Climate Emergency

This degree was previously known as Graduate Diploma in Sustainability and Climate Policy.The course expands the knowledge and understanding of the environment- and climate-related issues and helps find practical and deployable solutions. It is designed to develop skills and expertise to enter the sustainability profession by gaining comprehensive knowledge around climate policy, sustainable development and climate-resilient society. This cross-disciplinary course is designed to complement existing knowledge gained from an undergraduate qualification in any recognised area, including business, engineering, humanities, education, natural sciences, social sciences and health sciences.

Understand the relationship between global and local issues by learning to critique the impact of culture on sustainability. Apply climate policy to social research and analysis for public policy and commercial employment.

Graduate Diploma in Environment and Climate Emergency

This degree was previously known as Graduate Certificate in Sustainability and Climate Policy.This course introduces existing and emerging environment and climate-related issues, including urbanisation, transportation, water and energy use, food, circular economy and waste management. It is designed to complement existing knowledge gained from an undergraduate qualification in any recognised area, including business, engineering, humanities, education, natural sciences, social sciences and health sciences. The course also combines a general qualification with more specific educational opportunities, enabling students to learn in a way that best suits the current needs and priorities to tackle the global climate emergency.

Understand the relationship between global and local sustainability issues by developing social research and analysis skills. Learn to apply international best practice sustainability concepts to find a career in the public and private sectors. 

Graduate Certificate in Environment and Climate Emergency

This degree is designed to provide prospective students upskilling in the discipline of geography and to increase their employability in fields such as education, community development, social planning, environmental management and associated consultancy based work. It requires no prior knowledge of geography. The course allows existing teachers to specialise in Geography.

Analyse the environmental, social and economic aspects of human activity. Delve into climate change, cultural diversity, indigenous perspectives and global best practice. Work in planning, development, environmental management, and agriculture.

Graduate Certificate in Geography

Urban Geographies

Natural Hazards

Climate Policy

This subject was previously known as Sustainable Cities. This subject examines various notions of cities within a sustainability framework. Students will explore urbanisation trends in the context of existing and emerging sustainability challenges by reviewing cities worldwide. Its core focus is the issue of automobile dependence in cities and the associated land use, environmental, social, economic and urban design issues surrounding it. Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Define what it is that makes a city sustainable or unsustainable.Look into transport, environmental, urban design and economic concerns. Address cities’ dependence on cars, trucks and motorcycles. Discuss the cities that are making an effort go green.

Future Cities

This innovative approach to economics focuses on policy implementation for climate action and sustainable development. It moves beyond conventional approaches by reframing economics, accounting and policy within sustainability principles, parameters and processes, so that climate-friendly actions and sustainable behaviours are rewarded, rather than penalised. The focus is on implementation through the re-evaluation of economic activities, the restructuring of accounting narratives, and the used of monitoring and management regimes that support continuous sustainability learning. The subject provides new relevance for many existing methods currently marginalised in conventional policy processes. Students will learn ways of thinking and techniques that utilise new information system technologies. Socio-cultural and biophysical understandings from other sciences are integrated in a range of theoretical and practical perspectives on complex issues that have local and international relevance. The skills developed will enhance the employment prospects for students with organisations that are keen to move beyond business-as-usual to embrace the new world of sustainability-informed accounting, governance, management and policy.
Please Note:  If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.
Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Identify where economics crosses paths with policies for climate action and sustainable development.Strip economic approaches to sustainability down to their essence. Unpack the taxation system. Look at local and global climate change initiatives.

Sustainability, Climate Change and Economics

The subject will provide an overview of the concepts and principles of sustainable waste management. A critical approach to theories, techniques and methods of sustainable waste and resource management will be introduced in the course to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding on waste management. The subject will cover the subject areas of perceptions of waste, classification and characterization of waste, waste audit, 3R principles, waste collection, transportation, treatment technologies and safe disposal, performance evaluation, and strategy and policy regulation. In addition, the subject will cover the emerging concept of waste management such as ‘zero-waste’ in the context of circular economy.Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Explore how waste should be handled within the community to reduce its impact on the environment. Understand how waste is collected, transported and treated in Australia and across the world. Learn about better waste management practices.

Sustainable Waste Management

This subject was previously known as Pathways to Sustainability. This subject presents a new set of processes that underpin the movement toward a climate resilient society. Ontologies and epistemologies likely to generate sustainability praxis are examined. Pathways are explored that enable the development and implementation of sustainability, such as: transition management, reflexive governance, cultural value analysis, sustainability policy, sustainability mapping and sustainability planning. Students will develop both specific skills and understanding of the theories behind these skills. Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Set out to understand how you can improve sustainable practices.Distinguish various cultural, economic and ecological dimensions of sustainability. Take apart policy and critique it. Look to science fiction literature for visions of possible futures.

Pathways to a Climate Resilient Society

The subject is concerned with the practice of sustainable livelihoods in the developing world. The range of approaches to designing, implementing and evaluating development projects for sustainable livelihoods is critically examined. Topics include: project planning, understanding the project environment, logical framework analysis, participatory and control-oriented management techniques. Through case studies from the Asia-Pacific region these approaches are examined in the context of the socio-economic, cultural and environmental factors that influence the vulnerability and resilience of communities and their capacity to respond to global and local processes of change.Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Consider socio-economics, culture and the environment - and how these factors impact whether a community survives or thrives. Study project planning, learn framework analysis and dissect case studies in the developing world.

Sustainable Livelihoods

This subject explores a range of concepts and contexts in which ideas about nature operate, both historically and in contemporary culture. You will gain a broad introduction to many ideas relating to the natural environment and culture, from the western ideal of the &#39;Garden of Eden&#39; to contemporary gardens as cultural projects. You will explore links between nature and religion, an international history of gardens, the use of nature in political contexts and the role of the natural environment in an age of climate change.
Please Note:  If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.
Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Grow an understanding of humanity’s attitude towards landscape and beauty. Explore Japanese ideas of beauty and the natural world. Unpack the western ideal of the Garden of Eden and how it impacts historical and contemporary gardening practices.

Art and the Environment

This subject explores the interrelationships of people with and within systems. Students will explore themes related to society, culture, environment and technology and their reciprocal impacts. The subject seeks to develop students understanding of self as part of diverse and complex systems viewed through a critical lens.Please Note: This subject cannot be used as credit towards a university degree. However, it is designed to enable students to qualify for entry to an undergraduate degree.Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://academicintegrity.curtin.edu.au/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Get a snapshot of how people fit into the systems that govern the world. Mark the differences that set apart cultural beliefs, values and identity. Look to politics and the economy. Understand how these disparate elements help shape a society.

Introduction to Humanities

This subject was previously known as Topics in Sustainability.This subject enables students to understand, reflect and investigate some of the main sustainability problems (e.g. urbanisation, consumptions, greenhouse gas emissions) that the world faces now and in the future, including the relationships between these issues, and to research and put into professional practice the newly developed knowledge and skill.Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Tally up the greatest sustainability issues facing the world today. Predict what problems may arise in the future. Gain a theoretical perspective on topics such as population, climate and food production. Formulate your own policy solutions.

Introduction to Environment & Climate Emergency

This subject was previously known as Advanced Individual Project 2.Further development of project determined in consultation with supervisor(s) relating to the student’s field of specialisation.Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://academicintegrity.curtin.edu.au/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

Continue to develop your dissertation into a key area of sustainability theory. Emphasise the themes and sub-themes that you uncover through your research. Frame a hypothesis and argue your point. Incorporate primary and secondary research sources.

Sustainability Dissertation 2

The development and completion of a research proposal determined in consultation with supervisor(s) relating to the student&#39;s field of specialisation. The research proposal includes an extensive study of the relevant literature and the appropriate design of research methodology.Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.Find out more about the <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/students/essentials/rights/academic-integrity/aip/" target="_blank">Academic Integrity module</a>.

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