Unit information: Education, Climate Change and Social Justice in 2023/24

Unit name	Education, Climate Change and Social Justice
Unit code	EDUC10008
Credit points	20
Level of study	C/4
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Mr. Neville
Open unit status	Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)	None
Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)	None
Units you may not take alongside this one	None
School/department	School of Education
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Unit Information

Is education succeeding in preparing students to deal with the pressing challenges facing our planet and societies? Many young people are voting with their feet in answer to this question, striking to highlight the ways that schools and governments are failing to address the climate crisis and leading on movements like Rhodes Must Fall and Why is My Curriculum White? that seek to challenge the way in which colonialism and racism endure in education. This unit explores key global challenges – the climate emergency, decolonialization, racism in education, displacement and migration, and others – by offering students tools to both understand and design proposals (or strategies) to address these challenges. The unit will take an exploratory and multidisciplinary look at what is known about climate change and will also examine the inter-relationship between climate change and other key issues. The unit will also give students the opportunity to creatively explore the role of education in developing hopeful proposals for responding to these challenges and for imagining social, political and economic alternatives that promote environmental, social and epistemic justice.

The unit aims to:

• Provide opportunities to explore and understand a range of ways of knowing, and learning about, climate change and other pressing global challenges
• Consider the role of education in (a) responding to the complexities of social, political, emotional and environmental issues related to climate change and other global challenges, and (b) addressing those issues in conjunction with other associated educational initiatives;
• Develop an understanding of working across disciplines and with policy and activist generated knowledge in order to approach important contemporary issues;
• Develop proposals for hopeful alternatives and sustainable futures based on engagement with social justice theory and activist practices.

Your learning on this unit

On successful completion of this unit students will be able to demonstrate that they can:

1. Appreciate that education is affected by and can respond to climate change.
2. Correctly define and apply selected key concepts from social justice and climate justice theory;
3. Apply these concepts to critically discuss the relationship between climate change, social structures and education;
4. Discriminate between different types of academic, activist and media publications on education and climate change and select appropriate sources;
5. Develop and present, verbally and in writing, original reasoned arguments supported by critical engagement with appropriate academic and research literature.

How you will learn

Lectures and seminars.

Lectures will include short online and verbal quizzes and small group discussion, including through use of online platforms such as padlet and jamboard as well as a lecture presentation that introduces key ideas and provides guidance on how to engage with the essential readings and prepare for the seminar.

How you will be assessed

Formative assessment:

Group poster

In a lecture or seminar, in groups of 3-6, students create a chart showing some of the ways that climate change affects education and that education contributes, positively or negatively, to climate change. (ILO1)

Group presentation

In groups of 3-6, students merge their presentations for summative assessment 1 and make a presentation that uses at least 3 climate or social justice concepts to analyse one example of educational inequality or one way in which education interacts with climate change (ILOs 2-5)

Essay outline

Feedback on outline plan for the essay (ILOs 1-5)

Summative assessment

Powerpoint presentation (20%)

Structure provided for mini-powerpoint presentation of 2-4 slides in which the individual defines one key social or climate justice term, citing one or more academic sources. They then demonstrate their understanding of the concept by providing an example to illustrate the concept (ILOs2-4)

Essay (80%)

A 1500-word essay that analyses one aspect of education’s contribution, positive or negative, to climate change drawing on one or more of the key concepts introduced in the unit (ILOs 1-5)

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. EDUC10008).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.