Global Environmental Change takes a geographic (holistic) approach to examining key environmental challenges.  An exploration of major environmental changes happening at the global scale. With a particular focus on climate, ice, freshwater, and ocean processes, we investigate how geospatial monitoring and other tools are used to address global environmental challenges. We look at how human activities are interacting with Earth systems, and aim to empower people to improve environmental and societal resilience at a range of scales.

This course provides foundational knowledge, understanding and practical skills aligned to complex challenges of the modern era from an Earth Science perspective. We currently face a number of critical problems that result from the complex interaction of Earth Systems that have no simple solution. Such challenges are known as ‘Wicked Problems’. From an Earth Science perspective, wicked problems include the modern period of human-induced climate change, access to critical resources, and the risk posed from natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides. This course explores these problems and outlines the geologic approaches available to help better understand these problems. The course will develop fundamental geologic skills.

This is an integrated multi-disciplinary course between Aotahi: School of Maori and Indigenous Studies and the College of Science. This course provides a basic understanding of Maori and indigenous peoples’ knowledge in such fields as astronomy, physics, conservation biology, aquaculture, resource management and health sciences. The course provides unique perspectives in indigenous knowledge, western science and their overlap. The course will provide an essential background in cultural awareness and its relationship with today’s New Zealand scientific community.

In this foundational course, we examine stimulating questions such as what science is, who does science, how is science practiced, how do science, culture and society interact and how science is communicated to differing audiences. This course will draw on a variety of historical and contemporary case-studies, leading edge research, ethical challenges and controversial issues. Students will gain an understanding of the civic roles, responsibilities and influence of science in our Maori, New Zealand, and global communities. Students will learn how to work effectively as a team and communicate successfully to communities and end-users. Students will learn what it means to be a successful scientist in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the world in the 21st century.

including geoscientific data collection, analysis and visualisation, hazard analysis, spatial mapping, and written communication. Upon completion of this course, you will have acquired an appreciation for the role geoscience plays in creating, understanding and mitigating some of the most pressing issues facing humanity today, including * Rock and mineral derived contaminant cycling * Geologically derived carbon cycling and climate change * Hydroclimate, water resources and geosphere-hydrosphere-anthrosphere interactions * Novel metal resources * Plate tectonics; mountain building; faulting & folding * Natural hazards; earthquakes; landslides; tsunamis; volcanoes * Disaster risk; human-earth system interactions

This course provides an introduction to remote sensing data for geospatial analysis. Students will develop skills for the acquisition of data from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and satellites. Practical work focuses on the preparation of data for use in a Geographic information system (GIS), while laboratory exercises will introduce a range of analytic software that can be used to prepare and examine remotely sensed data.

Data Science is a fast growing, important, and globally in-demand discipline. This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of this field. It will start by introducing key mathematical and statistical concepts and applications like exploratory data analysis, probability (with a focus on essential theories, discrete and continuous random variables), modelling, inference, and bivariate data. It will also address a range of more applied topics where data is important to making decisions, including data wrangling, data analysis, and data visualisation, supported by the statistical programming language R.

This course examines the role of strategic communication in society as an economic and political force. Strategic communication attempts to persuade and argue for a particular position that one is advocating for – whether that be on behalf of a business, a governmental policy, or a social cause. Obvious examples from within media are public relations and advertising, however, this course will examine how sponsored messaging has affected social institutions, from education to politics to media to health to philanthropy. The second half of the course is focused on building the skills necessary to create effective strategic messages. This course has on-campus and distance options, and requires active participation.

An introduction to the fundamental principles of management related to the functional areas of planning, organising, leading and controlling, as well as an introduction to how organisations are linked to the New Zealand and global business environment. The objective of this course is to introduce students to the principles of general management theory and to explain the interface between management and the business environment. Key aspects of the functional areas of management will be introduced (i.e., planning, organising, leading, and controlling the use of economic and human resources to accomplish organisational goals), and the nature of organisational processes will be explained (e.g., processes related to organisational design such as decision making, leadership and communication.) The interface with the business environment will also provide students with a broad introduction to the current New Zealand and international business conditions, organisational cultures, marketing, social responsibility and business ethics.

This course aims to enable students to understand the fundamental concepts and theories of marketing and how they may be applied to the marketplace in a modern and dynamic environment. By the end of the course, students should appreciate the various concepts and theories of marketing and understand how these may be appropriately applied in achieving marketing objectives in a variety of contexts and environments. Lectures and tutorial exercises introduce students to the marketing concept, marketing environments, marketing strategy, its planning, implementation and control as well as consumer behaviour. The core elements of product, pricing, promotion and distribution are addressed.

This course is a general introduction to the changing responsibilities of business to society and the environment. This course is designed to 1) help you to understand current perspectives on the impact of business on climate change globalisation, and consumerism, and, 2) to help you analyse and develop ways in which business organisations respond ethically to the needs of society and the environment. Each of the topics is addressed at a global, national and organisational level. This is a blended learning course and as such has some face-to-face lectures, with some online only classes to give you more flexibility. This course taps into various disciplines with the aim of creating not only a holistic overview that more accurately reflects the kaleidoscopic nature of sustainability within the context of business, but also combines insights from different disciplines in order to suggest concrete practical and viable solutions to environmental and social problems we are facing. This course allows you to get a taste of these disciplines and to learn what you can do in your own career to address the challenges of reconciling business with environmental sustainability. The course is designed in a way that it provides a brief overview of the roles that business, globalization, consumerism and environmentalism play in today’s world, with particular focus on sustainability.