| Unit name | Integrated Learning Week: Sustaining the World (Trinity and Baptist College) |
|---|---|
| Unit code | THRS20077 |
| Credit points | 10 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Academic Year (weeks 1 - 52) |
| Unit director | Professor. D'Costa |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Religion and Theology |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
College Unit Code: N21007
College Unit Director: Dr John Bimson
The issue of sustainability provides a fruitful focus for an integrated study experience. It embraces questions of creation theology, environmental ethics, economic and social justice and issues of mission and development. This Integrated Learning Week will introduce students to each of these facets, using a variety of cross-disciplinary tools and resources.
Students will reflect on key questions such as:
1. How do human beings relate to the rest of God’s creation and what is our responsibility towards it?
2. Is it possible to balance the needs of a growing human population with care for the environment?
3. Are there distinctively Christian attitudes or responses to such issues?
An emphasis on biblical and theological insights will be maintained throughout.
This unit aims to:
1. facilitate students in integrating biblical, theological, missiological and ethical approaches to the current environmental crises;
2. enable students to think laterally about issues of sustainability;
3. encourage students to formulate a holistic view of mission which engages with matters of justice, environment and sustainable development.
On completing the unit students will:
1. have developed critical skills in cross-disciplinary study and reflection;
2. be able to demonstrate their ability to relate their knowledge competently to a variety of contexts;
3. have become adept at integrating theory to practice, drawing appropriately on biblical, doctrinal, ethical and missional disciplines to inform their thinking about issues of sustainability;
4. be able to offer a hermeneutically rigorous critique of sustainability in the light of biblical texts.
Resources will be made available to the students in the form of lectures, project work, small group work and practical engagement. These resources will draw on the disciplines of mission studies, discipleship and spirituality, biblical studies, pastoral and ministry formation, ecclesiology and church history, ethics and doctrine.
Students will work mostly in small groups, using a mind-map to develop their thinking through the week and to help them make connections between disciplines. All participating tutors will take part in a plenary panel discussion at the end of the week.
Formative assessment will be through the students' participation in a group of 5/6 students throughout the unit engaging in discussion, application of the various themes presented in the lectures, and other activites. In addition, students will write a daily learning journal of personal reflections and engagement with the theme of each day’s activity during the unit, for which written feedback will be given.
Summative assessment will be through a written task of 2,500 words.
1. Hore-Lacy, I., Responsible Dominion: A Christian Approach to Sustainable Development (Regent College Publishing, 2006).
2. Bookless, D., Planetwise (IVP, 2008).
3. White, R. S. (ed.), Creation in Crisis: Christian Perspectives on Sustainability, SPCK, 2009.
4. Toly, N.J. and Block, D.I. (eds.), Keeping God’s Earth: The Global Environment in Biblical Perspective (Apollos, 2010).
5. Lovelock, J., The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, Allen Lane, London, 2009.
6. Stiglitz, J., Globalization and its Discontents, Penguin, 2002.
Other texts to be decided by the participating tutors according to the approach of their speciality to the week’s theme.
