Undergraduate - UnitATS2106 - A short history of the world: From the big bang to climate change

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	History
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Ruth Morgan

Synopsis

How can history help us understand the environmental problems we face today? What has shaped the relationships between people and environments in the past? This interdisciplinary unit offers an introduction to global environmental history on a planetary scale. We begin with the origins of our universe and through a series of case studies and stories we will examine the Earth and its inhabitants, and how their relationships have changed over time. This unit is organised both chronologically and thematically, allowing students to explore pre-historical environmental change; agricultural, industrial and technological revolutions; Indigenous land management; disease; imperialism; capitalism; urbanisation; conservation and environmentalism; and anthropogenic climate change.
This unit offers an historical perspective on our modern environmental condition through an examination of the changing interactions between people, and people and the environment. It explores the influences on human dealings with the natural world, the ways that humans have changed the natural world, and how humans have responded to environmental change.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of the field of global environmental history
Demonstrate an ability to understand a variety of interactions between people and the natural world and how these interactions have changed over time (eg. cultural, technological and economic)
Demonstrate an understanding of contemporary environmental issues in a broad historical and interdisciplinary context.
Developed and demonstrated oral and written skills in constructing evidence-based arguments using a variety of primary and secondary sources
Demonstrate an ability to reflect critically on what they have learnt

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Ruth Morgan

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

History

Prerequisites

Twelve credit points of first-year Arts units.