Discuss the evolution of climate policy in a country of your choice.  Identify the key actors, events and influences that have shaped policy in that country.  1500-2000 words.

In your report you may wish to consider current targets and goals; key climate change policies, programs and institutions; comparisons with other countries, participation in international forums and agreements; influential domestic organisations and actors; barriers to progress; and the socio-cultural, economic and ethical contexts that influence climate policy. You are welcome to write your assignment in report or essay form and should draw from academic as well as non-academic sources (eg government and non-government policy documents, reports, media coverage, etc.)

One of the challenges for those working on climate change is communicating complex concepts and initiatives to general audiences.  This assignment addresses this issue in two parts.  

Task 1: Group e-presentation on mitigation strategies (7 minutes - 20%)

Task 1 requires you to work in a small group and create an e-presentation oriented at promoting a particular mitigation strategy of your choice to a general audience (something that might be posted on youtube or a website with information about climate change for example).  The e-presentation should be no more than 7 minutes long and can take the form of a podcast, digital story, video, slowmation, blended media or narrated powerpoint.  The e-presentation should explain the mitigation strategy and provide convincing arguments for its adoption.  The presentations will be shown in class and be followed by a public question and answer session.

If you are not already familiar with e-presentations this assignment will require you to develop some technical communication skills and have access to presentation software (such as powerpoint, imovie or windows movie maker).  A library training session will help with this however you are also expected to develop these skills through accessing online and other information.  A very valuable website which contains much of the information you require is: http://www.digiexplanations.com/.  Each team will be required to submit a sheet outlining the contribution of individual team members.

Task 2: Individual information sheets on mitigation (2 page - 10%)

Task 2 is an individual task rather than a group task. Each member of the group is require to create their own 2 page information sheet that promotes this mitigation strategy to a general audience in a country of their choice.  Each student should select a different country.  The sheets should include diagrams / pictures rather than dense text, however, to enhance credibility all information should be referenced and full references incorporated.  The information sheets should explain why the selected country should adopt this mitigation strategy.  

For this assessment you are invited to give a 5-10 minute oral presentation and publish in the proceedings of a workshop entitled "Pathways towards ethical and just climate resilient futures".  You are welcome to respond to the conference theme however you must submit a one paragraph abstract for approval at least 2 weeks prior to the conference to your tutor.  You may like to consider the ethical dimensions of a particular adaptation strategy; human and non-human climate justice issues; climate vulnerabilities; preparing for climate disasters; building capacities in people and places; promising strategies and initiatives from around the world; etc... Your presentation should be solution oriented - preparing society to respond to climate change.  

To publish in the proceedings you need to write a fully referenced essay based on your presentation (1500-2000 words).

The presentation is worth 20% of your final grade and the accompanying essay is also worth 20%.

If we are to address the challenges of climate change it is important that we act as informed and involved citizens.  This means participating in climate change debates effectively - in person and online.  This final assessment task requires your active participation in class and on online discussion forums.  Each week your contribution to class and to online discussion forums will be assessed.  This is not a matter of being the loudest voice in class, but a matter of engaging insightfully and effectively with the issues being discussed.  For class discussions you are expected to lead the discussion of a session theme at least once, and contribute your ideas when someone else is leading the discussion.  For online discussion you are expected to engage with the questions and debates raised through online discussion forums.  You will be assessed according to the overall quality of your contribution to that week's topic.  Hence if you don't get a chance to say very much in class you can still get a good grade by putting more effort into commenting through the online discussion forums.