Recommended Study Sequence

This unit promotes considerations of the inter-related processes of learning and creativity and the application and practice of these in all aspects of life. Learning and Creativity must be considered in context. This context is personal, social, cultural and environmental. Unit content is critically positioned within diverse theories, with an emphasis on experiential learning and ongoing critical reflection. The unit promotes understanding of feeling and experience as much as concepts and ideas. It emphasizes the tools and skills of learning, the everyday nature of creativity and enables students to develop and apply their creativity. It is designed for students interested in personal, community and cultural development, in the context of far reaching change.

Ecopsychology explores the relationships between humans, human consciousness, life on earch and the "environmental crisis", both in terms of personal experience and cultural change. In ecopsychological terms the symptoms of planetary ecological crisis are regarded as reflective of a fundamental split between nature and psyche. Ecopsychology is concerned with exposing the factors that contribute to this fundamental disconnection, and most importantly, with imagining and articulating personal and cultural processes that can enable a healing re-connection. This unit will employ experiential methods and critical inquiry to explore rich possibilities for psychological re-engagement with nature and implications for cultural change.

The unit provides opportunities for students to examine theories and practices associated with Transformative Learning (TL), within oneself and society, and its potential role for the development of professional educators, change agents and leaders in society. TL is learning that is liberating, emancipatory, empowering, profound, deep, and life changing. It occurs through critical reflection on experience, subsequent testing through discourse, and also through intuitive and affective processes. This unit enables students to design and facilitate life-affirming and transformative learning experiences in others.

What are the conditions that promote human health and happiness and enhance our capacity to bounce back from adversity? This unit will investigate the diverse range of interactive factors responsible for enabling wellbeing (beyond health) and resilience (ability to persist in inhospitable conditions). Drawing on newly emerging perspectives in psychology, education, sociology and ecology, students will develop practical tools suited to enabling wellbeing and resilience in a range of personal and social settings. Parallels within the personal, socio-cultural and ecological domains will be examined through critical examination of case studies and foundational principles, culminating in personally relevant student-initiated projects.

'Human Ecology and Global Citizenship' provides a foundation for the development of responsible social and ecological relationships. It examines the roots of our social and ecological planetary emergencies, and seeks effective ways to respond to and avoid such crises. Theoretical models and case studies are used to illustrate the application of social ecological design principles to human systems and endeavours. It emphasises working with complexity, social justice, and the interconnections (and perceived tensions) between environmental and social concerns and human wellbeing.

This unit asks students to reflect upon imagination and its use in personal, social, environmental and political action, as well as in research and inquiry. It aims to provide students with a practical and theoretical critique of dominant forms of academic expression and representation. The unit challenges students to develop a personal understanding of imagination and to apply this imagination to the development of creative responses to personal and social concerns. It emphasises experiential learning, personal development, and group and project work.

This transdisciplinary unit provides an holistic framework for understanding our past and present, and for collaborating with other in visioning and implementing improved futures. It is concerned with health and wellbeing (in the broadest sense), sustainability, values and change within individuals, societies and environments, and the interrelationship between these domains. It is applicable to all areas and is designed to support your ability to take an informed leadership role in society. It emphasises experiential learning, personal development, group work and project work (there are no exams).

This transdisciplinary unit provides a holistic framework for understanding our past and present, and for collaborating with others in visioning and implementing improved futures. The focus is on wellbeing (in the broadest sense), sustainability, values, leadership, change within individuals, societies and environments, and the interrelationship between these domains. It is applicable to all areas and is designed to support your ability to take an informed leadership role in society. It emphasises experiential learning, personal development, and group and project work (there are no exams).

This unit introduces Complexity Theory as a paradigm - an evocative, new framework by which we make sense of the world and how we may live in it. The proposition is developed that all complex systems are adaptive, self-organising with emergent properties. This calls into question how we seek to manage and control life events.