PHUV9490 Utdanningens politiske økologi Emneplan

Aims of sustainable development are today broadly endorsed. For instance, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as well as the dominant forms of green and carbon-low transformations, are claimed as important by governments, corporations, celebrities, and even royal families. At the same time, global warming with its impacts on living conditions takes place at accelerating speed, while climate and environmental injustices grow. Meanwhile, income, wealth, and economic power is more and more concentrated in the hands of the few. Knowledge about the crisis, their causes, and the impacts of various solutions, tends to be unavailable or is inaccessible to most people, and that which is available tends to be based on an ecomodernist understanding grounded in marketisation, techno-optimism, eternal economic growth and the reduction of responsibilities to a matter of individual consumption choices. A premise of this PhD course is that in order to achieve fast and just transformations towards sustainable and low-carbon societies, citizens need knowledge and tools to understand the options and engage in suitable choices of development roads. Education stands as a social institution with the potential to make key contributions.

The course will critically examine the state of the art of present mainstream as well as critical alternatives to education about sustainability, climate crisis and environmental conflicts. Based on their own research topics, course participants will be encouraged to take part in discussing ways of drawing from combined insights from the cross-disciplinary field of political ecology, various other relevant traditions of critical empirical research, as well as critical education traditions.

This course will be taught in English.

Course context: This is the last instalment in a series of four Research Council of Norway-funded PhD courses, organized in conjunction with several Norwegian ‘nodes’ or member institutions in the international Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). Past courses in the series include Political Ecology of Pandemics (SUM/University of Oslo, 2021), Political Ecology of Scarcity, Limits, and Degrowth (Noragric/Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 2022), Political Ecology of Land and Food Systems (Department of Geography/University of Bergen, May-June 2023).

After completion of the course, the students will have acquired the following learning outcomes:

Knowledge

Students have knowledge of and insight into:

• political ecology in general and political ecology of education in particular
• green transformation alternatives and how they are or are not reflected in education approaches (including ecomodernism, the UN’s Agenda 2030 with the Sustainable Development Goals, and degrowth)
• approaches to reduce climate emissions and approaches of climate education, (ranging from mainstream to critical approaches)
• critical pedagogy / critical education (including the tradition following the work of Paulo Freire)

Skills

Students demonstrate their capacity to:

• competently understand, explain and critically discuss topics covered by the course
• competently examine how various development strategies and change options are aimed at different goals
• critically discuss consequences and alternatives to what students in a particular education are taught about sustainable or carbon-low transformation alternatives
• produce a paper relevant to course topics in accordance with the required academic standards

General competence

Students demonstrate their capacity to:

• explain and discuss the various approaches (and possible combinations) that are highlighted in the course
• further enhance their academic writing and presentation skills, leveraging feedback from both senior academic colleagues and early-career research peers

• Political ecology of education
• Established and possible contents of education about environmental and climate change questions as well as green development approaches
• Critical approaches to pedagogy/didactics/education, within political ecology of education frameworks

Etter å ha gjennomført dette emnet har studenten følgende læringsutbytte, definert som kunnskap, ferdigheter og generell kompetanse:

Kunnskap

Studenten:

• kan grunnleggende hydrologi og hydraulikk for å forstå vannets kretsløp og egenskaper, herunder flomhydrologi
• kan de grunnleggende begreper og beregningsmetoder for konstruksjoner i vassdrag

Ferdigheter

Studenten:

• kan benytte seg av de viktigste normer og retningslinjer for konstruksjoner i vassdrag
• kan estimere tilgjengelig vannmengde for kraftproduksjon i et vassdrag
• kan dimensjonere og stabilitetsberegne dammer og øvrige vassdragstekniske konstruksjoner
• kan optimalisere kraftverk mht. produksjon og energibetraktninger
• kan redegjøre for de vanligste turbintyper, deres funksjon og spesielle egenskaper

Generell kompetanse

Studenten:

• kan gjøre selvstendige vurderinger av et planlagt kraftverk, valg av damtype, installasjon og estimert produksjon
• kan vurdere miljøfaglige spørsmål mht. utbygging av vannkraftverk

Arbeids- og undervisningsformer er forelesninger og gjennomføring av øvinger. Ekskursjon til et kraftverk.

Følgende arbeidskrav er obligatorisk og må være godkjent for å fremstille seg til eksamen:

6 øvinger.

Individuell skriftlig eksamen på 3 timer.

Eksamensresultat kan påklages.

Ved eventuell ny og utsatt eksamen kan muntlig eksamen bli benyttet. Eksamensresultat kan da ikke påklages.

Lover og forskrifter fra NVE:

• Retningslinjer for laster og dimensjonering.
• Retningslinjer for betongdammer.
• Retningslinjer for murdammer.
• Retningslinjer for flomløp.
• Retningslinjer for stenge- og tappeorganer.
• Retningslinje for instrumentering og overvåking av Vassdragsanlegg.
• Veileder for fyllingsdammer

Håndholdt kalkulator som ikke kommuniserer trådløst og som ikke kan regne symbolsk. Dersom kalkulatoren har mulighet for lagring i internminnet skal minnet være slettet før eksamen. Stikkprøver kan foretas.

Gradert skala A-F

Target group

We aim to bring together course participants with a broad range of different backgrounds. On the one hand, we want participants who before the course either have studied or started a PhD project with empirical studies concerning questions about sustainability, climate or the environment. On the other hand, we welcome participants who come from the field of education and/or do their PhD project within an education department. Moreover, we invite applicants from various parts of the world.

Admission requirements

1. The admission will require a five-year master’s degree (three years + two years) or equivalent qualifications in social sciences, teacher education or in any other subjects or fields for which the course is seen as relevant for the applicant.
2. All applicants must submit a brief summary of their PhD project (about ½ - 1 page).
3. All applicants must submit a text of 250 - 500 words (+ eventual literature references) about their motivation and background for taking part in this course, and how they consider the course to be relevant for their PhD project.
4. Up to five seats will be reserved for applicants who are enrolled as PhD students at OsloMet’s Faculty of Education and International Studies.