Environmental Humanities in Practice (PEH340)

Content

Each student will work with a practice partner, which may be an internal researcher or research group at UiS, a local institution, or one situated elsewhere in the world, to define the project that best fits the needs of the student and the institution. The program coordinator will help students to identify the correct partner for their project.

This course has two components: 1) a practice placement and 2) the creation of a public-facing project.

1: Practice Placement: This practice will give students the opportunity to work in a real-world setting. During a12-week practice period, students will work 225 hours (equivalent to 50% of a full workload) with the partner on typical work tasks and will spend an additional 225 hours (50%of a full work load) on their own public project. Students will have a supervisor at the partner institution. All partnerships will be defined through a written contractual agreement between the partner organization (and supervisor at that organization), UiS(and program coordinator), and the student. The agreement will define the tasks that the student will undertake.

At the end of the practice period, an evaluation of the student will be completed by the practice supervisor. This evaluation will include a list of the tasks that the student has done, as well as an evaluation of how well the student has done those tasks; an evaluation of how well the student has met the learning outcomes of the course; and any other feedback the supervisor has about their experience with hosting a student from the program. The student will also complete a self-evaluation of the practice period. Evaluation forms will be given to the students for completion.

2: Public-FacingProject: Students will scope and build an extensive public project that communicates environmental humanities research, typically expanding on the Master’s Thesis they completed the semester before. Students can be innovative and creative in designing their project. This public project may take many forms, including, but not limited to, an online exhibition, a cartographic tool, a podcast series, a creative artwork, a nonfiction film or book, an interactive game, a policy brief series, and educational material. The audience for the public project is open—it may be children, students, policy makers,organizations, environmentally-interested publics, etc.

At the beginning of the semester, students will attend a one-day scoping seminar to workshop the format of their projects. Four weeks into the practice period, students will deliver a project plan for discussion during individual supervision with a UiS course instructor. Students must present their work publicly at an end-of-semester show. Students will write an extensive reflection on their project, situating their work and choices within the field of environmental humanities.

In addition to the large outward facing project developed during the semester, students are required to create of a digital portfolio of all of their public-facing work produced during their studies, i.e. a cumulative capstone portfolio. This will position students for career development and job applications.

Learning outcome

A candidate who has completed and passed the course

Knowledge

• can apply knowledge from environmental humanities to new situations
• can identify and select an appropriate output form for the given research
• has an understanding of how environmental humanities research frames itself in relationship to its place in society

Skills

• can work with others in a cooperative way
• can use relevant methods to develop a project in conjunction with a practice partner
• can carry out a research project under supervision and in accordance with applicable norms for research ethics

General Competence

• can analyze relevant ethical problems in the creation of public-facing products
• can apply knowledge and skills to a new working situation in order to carry out an advanced project
• can communicate extensive independent work with the language and terminology of environmental humanities
• can communicate orally and in writing about academic issues, analyses and conclusions in the field with the general public
• can contribute to new thinking and innovation processes by creatively developing advanced public-facing output and project

Required prerequisite knowledge

Exam

Coursework requirements

• Students must attend a one-day scoping seminar at the beginning of the semester.
• Students must submit a project plan draft to the course teacher and have a supervision meeting about it.
• Students must document 225 hours of practice placement work - this is documented through a final report sent by the host.
• Students must complete a post-practice placement qualitative evaluation form.
• Students must generate a digital portfolio compiling the various public-facing work they have produced during their studies.
• Students must present their project at the end-of-semester show.

Course teacher(s)

Course coordinator:

Course teacher:

Method of work

Literature