INTERDISCIPLINARY CASE STUDY

The course is included in the Environmental Sciences master programme, curriculum on ""Global Environmental Change",GEC. The main objective of the programme is to train highly skilled professionals, who could put into use their interdisciplinary knowledge for identifying and solving complex environmental problems. In particular, the GEC curriculum aims at providing an integrated and systemic view of economic and environmental dynamics, in order to enable master graduates to deal with global environmental challenges, in the context of sustainable development. To this regard, the challenges connected to adaptation and mitigation to Climate Changes will be one of the major focus of the curriculum. In this context, the course aims at valorizing the body of multidisciplinary knowledge delivered by the rest of the programme, focusing on the elaboration of a research project concerning a large, interdisciplinary theme, connected to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in presence of Global Changes.

Attending the classes and thoroughly studying the course notes and reading materials will enable students to achieve the following learning outcomes.
1) Knowledge and comprehension
Knowledge concerning the links among the selected theme, the SDGs and Global Changes. In 2024-25 the theme will be: Local Ecological Knowledge.
2) Capacity of applying knowledge and comprehension
To be able to: carry out a literature search, identify research and innovation questions, integrate data and information found in the literature, elaborate them and discuss the results, propose solution and elaborate a systematic review.
3) Assessment capacity
To be able to assess the information content of different literature sources and databases.

The course aims at valorizing previous background and knowledge, focusing on the investigation of a specific, though broad theme. Therefore, no specific prequisite is required and, hence it can be attended also by mobility students.

Structuring a systemic review following PRISMA methodology. Identification of objectives, of progress beyond state-of-the-art, of results and impacts.

Slides, methods and scientific papers provided by the professor.

Learning is verified through the production of a review paper supervised by the lecturer. The product is assessed at 70% for the written work, 20% for the presentation and 10% for the reviews of the works of others.

written

Grading will be as follows:
Scores in the 18-22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- limited ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgements;
- sufficient discussion of the obtained results;
Scores in 23-26 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- discrete ability to collect and/or interpret data, making autonomous judgements;
- fair discussion of the obtained results;
Scores in the 27-30 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- good or very good knowledge and applied understanding of the topic covered;
- good or very good ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgements;
- fully appropriate discussion of obtained results .
Honours will be awarded if the student has made extra commitments during the course, helping others, participating fully in all activities (unless justified absence) and/or have produced the top-level review, theoretically publishable in disciplinary or interdisciplinary journals.

Three blocks of meetings will be dedicated to the development of the review idea, allocating circa 5 meetings to everyone. In the first one, the research topics will be selected using brainstorming after providing sufficient background. In the second one, the trans/cis/interdisciplinary methodologies will be discussed and the approach suitable for every review will be chosen by students and peer-reviewed within the class and joint efforts will be taken in order to give the review the best possible direction. In the third one, other aspects of the review will be worked on as well as the presentation of the project and final peer-review.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development