Education for Climate Change Adaptation — Enhancing the Contemporary Relevance of Planning Education for a Range of Wicked Problems

Figures & data

Figure 1 Examples of contemporary, interlinked, and often ‘wicked’ planning problems

Figure 2 Increase in the proportion of enrolled distance education environmental planning students, 2003–2012, UTAS (Source: School of Geography & Environmental Studies, UTAS, 2012)

Table 1 Comparison of embedded and standalone approaches to integrating climate change adaptation into planning coursework

Table 2 Core module topics, coursework units, and content modules

Table 3 Problem-based learning activities and assessment tasks

Problem	Activity and Assessment task	Skills/capacities development
1. A Tasmanian municipality with perceived vulnerabilities to sea-level rise and associated climate change impacts. How to assess current vulnerability and track future vulnerability to sea level rise and coastal storm events?	Vulnerability assessment: Group A: Undertake a vulnerability assessment by developing a set of current vulnerability indicators. Group B: Prepare a set of future vulnerability indicators using a range of data — risk assessments, and social, demographic and economic studies.	• Reinforced the relevance of interdisciplinary investigation, collaborative and cooperative learning, and self-evaluation. • Gave students practice at indicator development and elements of vulnerability assessment.
2. A hypothetical proposal for a tourist and holiday development on a rural property located near the entrance to an estuary to demonstrate the complexities of integrated coastal planning. There was a range of social, economic, environmental and climate change issues to be considered (sea-level rise, storm surge, protection of endangered species, international agreements for the protection of migratory birds, low rainfall and unreliable water supply, the importance of an aquaculture industry to the local economy, potential water quality impacts).	Role play: The exercise required students to take on various roles in making submissions to a state planning authority and then to take up roles in either of two policy advisory committees. They were tasked to: (i) Consider the lessons for Integrated Coastal Planning emerging from stakeholder representations and associated discussions. (ii) Formulate recommendations on integrating climate change into coastal planning.	Students: • Considered and integrated a range of relevant planning and environmental management legislation. • Adopted an interdisciplinary approach and explored complexities of integrated planning. • Undertook critical evaluation of submissions. • Collaborated via group-based work and undertook networked learning. • Role play enhanced students' skills in argument, advocacy, communication, and negotiation.
3. Developing skills to deal with the high level of uncertainty associated with climate change and assist foresighting.	Scenario development: Group A: Generate scenarios relating to climate change impacts on the Australian Snowy Mountains alpine ecosystems. Group B: Develop scenarios relating to climate change impacts on Great Barrier Reef coral reef ecosystems. Both groups were asked to discuss and prepare a set of leading indicators to monitor the unfolding of scenarios and suggest appropriate planning or management responses.	• Exposed importance of strategic planning. • Practiced scenario development which enables planners to envision a range of plausible futures and together with indicators to monitor the unfolding of scenarios. • Provided exposure to monitoring methods which are essential to support adaptive learning and adaptive planning.
4. Securing water supplies for a drought-prone city in southern Australia with the aim of making the city resilient to climate change and climate variability.	Charrette: Groups undertook a charrette exercise to develop competing consultant tenders for the coordination, implementation, and evaluation of an integrated adaptive water management strategy for the city. Consultants were required to present their concept plan to a panel of expert judges. • Experience in collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches. • Recognised diversity in student expertise, skills and knowledge.	• Linked theory to practice — application of integrated and adaptive management approaches to a real-life problem. • Critical analysis and self evaluation of individual contributions and the groups' approaches supported adaptive learning. • Topic complexity and organisational demands of the exercise obliged groups to network and work collaboratively.

University of Tasmania. (UTAS). (2012) Courses and units 2013:2013 Master of Environmental Planning. http://courses.utas.edu.au/portal/page/portal/COURSEUNIT/UTASCOURSEDETAIL?PCOURSECODE=S7U&PCONTEXT=NEW (Accessed November 2012).

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