ATS3887-APG4887: Designing Urban Futures: Urban Climate, Water and Adaptation

3rd year students:
Lit review -- 25%
Prac reports -- 3x 5%
Research essay -- 30%
Exam -- 30%

4th year students:
Lit review -- 20%
Prac reports -- 3x 5%
Class presentation -- 15%
Research essay -- 25%
Exam -- 25%

I don't even know where to begin. I guess I should say here: don't bother doing this unit, it's sh!t. I really did try to like this unit but there weren't any redeeming qualities, apart from the fact that the pracs are easy marks.

Okay, let's start from the start. The lectures were crap and this unit had no real structure. There were far too many guest lecturers and Nigel Tapper was, well, hardly around. Trying to get in contact with him was a royal pain in the arse and it took forever to get ANY work back at all. Case in point -- I handed in my research essay in Week 11, and I didn't get it back until the 14th of November -- the day before the exam. No one got any feedback, just a numerical grade number. The fact that most of the unit was made up of guest lecturers meant that there was no real cohesion, and a lot of confusion as to what was actually examinable/how we could be assessed on the stuff. There was maybe 3 or 4 weeks of actual content, and the rest of it felt like a long and drawn out advertisement for Nigel's CRC for Water Sensitive Cities. There was SOME interesting content, I'll grant it that, but a lot of it was a repeat of first and second year and to be honest, I got by with a basic understanding of climate science and common sense.

The lit review was annoying. They gave out the topic at the start of semester, but beyond that we weren't given any clues as to how to actually do it. Furthermore, it was not made clear to us that we were not to write on the topic that we were given, rather we were meant to take that topic and narrow it down so it could be refined into a 'better' topic. That would have been fine... if we were told we had to do it. As a result, a lot of us crashed and burned simply because we misunderstood what was wanted. Oh, and the marking criteria wasn't released until a day or two before it was due... but then when we got our essays back, a DIFFERENT marking criteria was used, so there was plenty of potential to lose marks in categories that didn't previously exist (like including an abstract!).

As for the research essay, well... we were given more help to work on it as opposed to the lit review, but not much more help. You're supposed to look at the data they give you and come up with a research question, answer it, etc. It was annoying because communication in the unit was really poor -- there was an extension given out at the last minute to everyone, but it was so poorly publicised that most of us were unaware until after we handed our stuff in. I've done research essays before and generally quite like them, but this one was just a pain.

Exam was straightforward, stock standard essay writing and a handful of definitions.

I was enrolled as a third year, not a fourth year, so I can't comment on how difficult the class presentation is to put together, but by the looks of things it seemed an easy way to get marks, so I'm kind of spewing that the third years weren't given a similar opportunity. Plus, if you enrol in this unit at 4th year level, all of your individual assessments are weighted less so I guess it's an advantage.

TL;DR unless they revamp this unit and get someone else in, don't bother. This unit sucked, and this is coming from someone that likes geography!

Nigel Tapper, (many!) various guest lecturers

1 in the past exams database.

1 out of 5

yes

No single set text, but there is a reading list. If you're that interested you could probably find relevant stuff in the library.

2x 1 hour lectures
1 fortnightly(ish) 2 hour prac

Sem 2 2013

TBA, probably a D