(lively music)
- Dear students, welcome to our course
in Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Engineering.
- Hi, my name is Soo Huey Teh.
I'm a teacher and researcher in the School
of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW.
Welcome to this course.
- And I'm Tommy Wiedmann,
a professor in the same school.
Together, we will be your teachers
and guides in this course.
Even though the course is online,
we will accompany you on your journey
through this course.
We are not virtual.
We are real
and we will be there for you
when you need us.
- Right, even though this course
is fully delivered online on Moodle,
please note that we are also present online
throughout the course
and happy to answer any questions you might have.
We're really pleased you have decided to enrol
in this course.
- Now, talking about the course,
what is it about?
Well, if you put it into a bigger context,
then it is about learning
how to assess and deal with some
of the largest challenges that we are facing.
In a nutshell, we humans are using too many resources
from the natural environment
and we are putting too many pollutants back into it.
That leads to resource depletion,
climate change, damages to natural
and man-made systems.
The Great Barrier Reef, for example,
is dying before our eyes.
The provisioning of healthy and sustainable food
is increasingly difficult,
and biodiversity is in steep decline.
- This is where engineering comes into the picture.
More than ever, engineers need to find holistic
and effective solutions
to currently unsustainable practises
of production and consumption.
Engineers need to help protect the natural environment
and meet the social and economic needs
of a growing human population at the same time.
This course will introduce you
to the concepts and methods of sustainable engineering
and industrial ecology
and their application in work practise and research.
- You will learn how to analyse
and assess the environmental impacts
of industrial systems and economies.
We aim to equip you with the ability
to understand challenges of sustainability
from a local to global scale,
to think critical, holistically
and with a life cycle perspective.
You will also learn
how to apply sustainability assessment methods and tools
in real-world examples.
Ultimately, after the course,
we want you to be able to make recommendations
towards more sustainable decision-making.
- Now we also need to talk about how this course will run
and what you need to do
to get the best out of it.
As you know, the course is 100% online.
There are no face-to-face classes.
We have developed many online resources
and activities for you to engage with.
As you can see on Moodle,
the course has a week-by-week structure.
We urge you to keep up with the content week by week
and not fall behind with the schedule.
It is expected that you invest
at least six hours per week of private study in this course.
- [Tommy] The typical content of a week consists
of lecture videos, interactive learning activities
and reading material.
All the material and activities
are designed to convey course concepts,
work you through examples
and test your learning progress.
By completing the activities,
you can ensure you're all well prepared
for the next week.
- [Soo] We have also included
special online discussion forums,
some of which will be live and in real time.
Sometimes the most effective learning happens
through your peers and we strongly encourage you
to participate in the online discussions.
If you have questions
that other students may also be pondering,
make sure you post them in the discussion forum
so that your classmates will benefit as well.
Also, we encourage you to help your classmates out
by answering your questions if you can.
This is an excellent way for you to learn as well.
- In terms of marked assessments,
there will be three online quizzes throughout the course,
one individual assignment
which also includes a video presentation
and one group assignment.
All of these will be done online
and for the group assignment,
it is particularly important
that you communicate well with your fellow group members.
For this, there will be a dedicated online forum
for you to use.
- Remember, we are here to help you through the course.
Please use the Q and A forum on Moodle
to post your questions online
and we will try to respond as soon as we can
or maybe one of you knows the answer
and has posted it already.
- Yeah, that would be ideal.
Most importantly, we hope you will have fun going
through the activities
and will thoroughly enjoy the course.
Even though some tasks might be challenging,
you will attain new knowledge
and skills that will be useful on many occasions
in your professional life later on.
We wish you good luck.
- Good luck and we are looking forward
to seeing you online.
- Thank you.