ASSIGNMENT DEADLINES, RULES AND ADVICE

Assignments must be completed and submitted, on time and in full, in order to receive credit. Penalties for late assignments will be a minimum of 10% per day or part thereof, beginning at 0900, not at some time later in the day.

The deadlines for assignments are not negotiable. Only a medical certificate or a letter with appropriate supporting documents outlining other serious, extenuating circumstances can be used to submit an assignment after the due date without penalty. Vague medical certificates are unconvincing – they must indicate how the illness impacted your ability to perform the assignment on time. Such permission must be sought before the due date unless this is absolutely impossible. Let us know of problems in advance or as soon as possible, not after the event: we are likely to be much more sympathetic and flexible in our requirements if you follow this advice.

All applications for extensions of deadlines for Assignment 1 must be submitted to Assoc/Prof Ian Goodwin or Mr Tom Mortlock. All applications for extensions of deadlines for Assignment 2 must be submitted to Dr Linda Beaumont, Ms Toni Mizerek

Please note the policy on word limits for these assignments

- Penalties apply for excessive length (10% for every 200 words exceeding the limit).

- Diagrams, figures, reference lists and footnotes don’t count in the word tally.

- Inclusion of the chart used by the lecturer in setting the question doesn't count in the word tally.

While not as important as content, the stylistics and presentation of your written work are still significant. You must express your ideas clearly and succinctly. Word limits will be enforced (see policy above), so you must take care to stick to the point.

If you experience difficulty achieving a good standard in your written presentations, please talk with your course convenor directly. The University offers excellent writing courses and resources designed to help you deal with what could potentially become a career-limiting problem if you lapse into denial about it.

Assessment of assignments will be based on the Macquarie University scale as set out in the Handbook of Undergraduate Studies (the “Calendar”): High Distinction (HD), Distinction (D), Credit (Cr), Pass (P), Fail (Fail). The markers may choose to further refine these grades by appending “+” or “-” to indicate work towards the top or the bottom of each grade’s band of marks. Feedback will also come in the form of written comments on each student’s assignments, as well as general comments directed to the entire class after all marked assignments have been returned (typically in class or via the online Discussion Forum). Assignments are generally marked and returned with a two-week turnaround (except if they are submitted late).

Citing and Referencing

NB: References should ideally be restricted to peer-reviewed literature, government policies and official publications. The use of web sites MUST be restricted to government departments or peer-reviewed scientific information. The referencing of blogs, special interest groups, media is rarely suitable, nor is the use of popular books. If in doubt, please check with the academic staff.

There are several systems of acknowledging your sources and other relevant work. The main requirements are clarity, consistency and the provision of all relevant bibliographic information so that someone else can easily find the source you are citing. Select a style and be consist with your usage of it. A good system widely adopted in the physical and environmental sciences is the “Harvard” or “author-date” method, where a brief reference to the source is given in the main text. Four examples of within-text referencing are;

• The sun is hot (Smith, 1978, pp. 4-5).
• According to Smith (1978, pp. 4-5), the sun is hot.
• Others have contested that the sun was hot, citing a lack of detailed information (Jones & Bloggs 1979).

Where there are more than two authors, you can abbreviate their names with a handy bit of Latin, "et alia" or "et al." (literally meaning "and others"). And being Latin, we should italicize the font;

• Smith et al. (1981), in their reply to Jones and Bloggs (1979), presented additional data confirming that the sun is indeed hot.

Notice that I used an ampersand (“&”) within brackets only (c.f. Jones & Bloggs) but not in the running text.

Full bibliographic details of all sources cited must be listed in a “Reference List”, in alphabetic order of authors, at the end of the report. There, you should include details of the author(s), year of publication and specific pages (if required). Examples of how to construct a Reference List include;

For a book give: author(s), year of publication, title, publisher, and place of publication.

• Smith, K. 1994. The Geography of Environment. Jones Books, London.

For a journal article give: author(s), article title, journal name, volume number, issue number (in parentheses) and pages.

• Smith, K. and Jones, I. 1995. The Australian environment. Geographical Review 68(5), 99-111.

For a chapter in an edited book, give the following details:

• Smith, K. 1996. Seeing the Australian environment. In Jones, E. (editor) Global Environment. University Publishers, Melbourne, pp. 100-112.

Don’t use “et al.” in a reference list; spell out all authors. Our preference is also to include full journal names, not abbreviations.

To reference a lecture (which is not generally encouraged because ENVE214 assignments are supposed to stretch you beyond the lectures), you might use the following format:

• Flannery, T., ENVE214 lecture, 6th November, 2008, Macquarie University.

For a web source we have to ensure that - (a) authors get credit where it is due, and (b) sufficient detail is given for readers to be able to visit the site. For example, a reference to a Department of Environment and Conservation website in the text would be “DEC (2006)”, and in the reference list this would expand to;

• DECC (NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change) 2008. NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change, incorporating Environment Protection Authority.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/home.htm (accessed 05 August 2008).

This gives the author (in this case a corporate entity) credit for their web page, the date of their most recent update to their site, the name/title of the web site, the full URL location of their web site, and finally, the date on which you accessed their web site.

Submission of Assignments

All assignments must be submitted electronically through iLearn and in hard copy to the Science Centre, Level 1 E7B

1. Assignments must be submitted through iLearn. All assignments will be passed through Turnitin, and students are strongly encouraged to view the originality report that turnitin creates (NB this may take 10-15 minutes after you submit your assignment).

2. All assignments are to be submitted to the Science Centre level 1 E7B by 5pm on the date specified and must include a completed and signed coversheet stapled to the front cover.  The Assignment Cover Sheet can be downloaded from the web at http://www.science.mq.edu.au/documents/FoS_assignment_coversheet_09.pdf. Please do not use any other folders, plastic sleeves, wallets or envelopes - these will not be returned.

If you need to hand in your work after the date in which the rest of the assignments have been returned to students, you may be set a different assignment, even if you have completed the original one. External Students must submit all assignments through COE according to their specific protocols (i.e. using their special bar-coded folders for each submission). If you know that you are going to hand in an assignment late, you must contact the course convenor beforehand. Unless there is the appropriate documentation, late assignments will be penalised or not marked.

Obtaining Your Marked Assignment

Assignments will be returned within two teaching weeks of the submission date in the normally scheduled lectures or practical classes (so it is essential that you indicate your correct practical class timeslot on the assignment cover sheet). Assignments not collected will be returned later in the semester to the Science Centre and students may collect them there during working hours. Students will be required to show Student ID to collect assignments.

There are two lectures each week. You also need to enrol in a specific practical class. The University expects that you devote 9 hours per week, in total, to a 3 credit point unit like ENVE214 - anything less will put you at a distinct disadvantage in terms of final grade.

 Lectures

There are TWO lectures each week. These are:

 Tuesday            11am      W5A T1

Friday       9am      W5A T2

N.B. Some lectures will be available as iLectures and/or as powerpoint presentations in this unit. However, you are expected to attend and take notes during the live lectures. Illustrative material from the lectures will be made available from the ENVE214 ilearn web site:

Practicals / Tutorials

There is ONE practical / tutorial each week. The options are:

Thursday        9 – 11am        E5A260

Thursday        11 – 1pm          E5A260

Thursday         2 – 4pm          E5A260

Thursday       4 – 6pm          E5A260

Friday        11 – 1pm           E5A270

These 2-hour “hands-on” classes will be in the computer laboratory (E5A260 or E5A270). The practicals / tutorials are compulsory and are designed to help you work towards the assessable assignments, to allow you to build on lectures, reading and other material, and to develop some valuable generic skills. You must complete all practicals, tutorials and both assignments in order to be eligible to sit the final examination and complete the unit successfully.

Suggested Workload Proportion

5. READING

Chapters from the following books will form the minimal reading requirements for most weeks lectures. Copies of these are held in the Macquarie University Library. Additional references on specific aspects of climate change will be announced during lectures and on the unit web page.

1. Houghton, J. 2010. Global Warming: The Complete Briefing. Fourth Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , U.K., 438 pages.

2. Hannah, L. 2010. Climate Change Biology. Academic Press. 416 pages.

Three other books that provide good overviews of Climate Change are:

1. Dessler, A. and Rason, A.A. 2010. The science and politics of global climate change. A guide to the debate. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , U.K., 211 pages.

2. Archer, D. and Rahmstorf, S. 2010. The climate crisis. An introductory guide to climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , U.K., 249 pages.

3. Steffen, W., Burbidge, A.A., Hughes, L., Kitching, R., Lindenmayer, D., Musgrave, W., Stafford Smith, M., P.A. Werner. 2010. Australia’s Biodiversity and Climate Change. CSIRO.

CHANGES MADE IN THIS UNIT FROM 2013

The course lecture and practical content has been revised since 2013.

 Climate change is one of the most important issues that humanity will have to grapple with in the 21st century. While our climate system's complex processes will certainly remain a focal point for science this century, the spotlight is shifting away from basic climate science towards questions concerning the impacts that climate change will have, and what we must do to adapt to and mitigate those impacts. The primary outcome of the course is to develop an understanding of the causes of climate change, future projections and solutions to the climate change problem.

Although it is designated as a "science" unit in the undergraduate handbook, ENVE214 is pitched to a very diverse audience; physical, biological, social, economic, and engineering perspectives will all be presented. The curriculum in ENVE214 is designed to explore the fundamentals of the climate system and the impacts on the physical environment, biological environments and social environments. We examine the global scale climate change processes including impacts on ice sheets, oceans and continental-scale precipitation, to regional climate change and impacts, with a focus on Australian and south-west Pacific regions. The unit then builds on this information to investigate the solutions to climate change including: mitigation, adaptation and renewable energy options, green business, international and national legal frameworks, and carbon emissions trading schemes.

ENVE214 Diary 2014

The tutorial /practical sessions are 2 hours long. The lectures are 50 minutes each (starting at 5 minutes past the hour) and there are two per week.