What I’d like to introduce you to today is a new program which the university has introduced and we are taking students into this program in 2010 and this is the Bachelor of Science Environment and Sustainability. It combines teaching in the field of Ecology and in the field of Climatology and focus on using our interests and understanding of the environment and the processes that operate in the environment to work towards a sustainable use of our natural environment.

What does it lead to? If you have an interest in green professions, if you have an interest in how humans interact with the natural environment, or if you have an interest to either study full time here on campus, or off campus or part time, then this program will cater for you.

And it will deliver a professional degree in the Sciences, a Professional Science qualification. You will examine or the program will examine and through your studies you will examine aspects of climate change, biodiversity, conservation, Natural Resource Management and Sustainability and you will contribute to a new field of human endeavour of using what we have done in the past in a rather unsustainable way you will contribute to using our natural environment in a sustainable way through your professional. You will be able to apply your knowledge of sustainability and achieve sustainability in professions. Be it Engineering, be it Science, be it Education, if you are a teacher or if you teach at university level or are a researcher. So there are many professions you can work within.

The program, the Bachelor of Science Sustainability will basically provide you with the knowledge and the skills to gain employment in the industry, local, regional, state and national public service agencies. There are many professions you can work in. You can work as a climatologist, you can work in climate policy, ecotourism, you can contribute to conservation and biodiversity management, you can work as an environmental consultant. With further studies you can work as a science journalist or as a science teacher and even with further postgrad studies you can become a trained qualified scientist and work in research organisations in Australia and abroad.

So many professions are open for you when studying the Bachelor of Environment Sustainability. When you have completed the program, what have you gained and what will you be able to demonstrate? You will be able to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of major environmental issues, the human impact on the natural environment. You will also learn how the physical environment works and drives the composition of our natural environment. You will be able to apply knowledge of environmental issues and how humans impact on the environment and how humans can work to sustainable environmental resource management. You will be able through this degree, apply your skills and demonstrate more than just the basic competencies in many areas such as climatology, physics, statistics and mathematics.

If you have an interest in Environmental Sciences Ecology Conservation Natural Resource Management and Sustainability, you will be able to demonstrate that you understand what is happening in this field and you will be able to apply your knowledge gained through studying in the Bachelor of Environment Sustainability. You will be able to apply this knowledge to manage your professional environment towards sustainability. You will demonstrate strong comprehension of social, political and environmental implications of the human impact on the global environment. And you will be able to apply the principles of sustainability as I said before in many professional fields.

Let’s have a look at the structure of the program. It’s basically composed of three components, we have something which is referred to as foundation studies or courses, we have the eight core courses of the sustainability major, and then we have the option to select a second major from anywhere across the university from any other faculty and you will have the option to select courses of your interest that contribute to the whole package of the Bachelor of Science and Environment. There are eight courses in this major of Environment Sustainability. They are courses that introduce you to Natural Resource Management and to the area of sustainability and to the subject of climatology. Let’s have a look at two examples of the courses we are covering here. One of the First year subjects in First semester that is taken by students in this program as well as by students across campus. This is a course entitled environmental studies. What you will do in this course is that you will study environmental issues on a global scale. The course content is inter disciplinary, you will cover biophysical environments, you will cover political issues, you will cover the economic society, and how human impacts on the natural environment. In this course, you will examine from a global perspective and on a regional scale, how land is utilised and what the impacts is on mining and fishing. How we produce energy in the environment, how we use water and how all of our human activity leads to pollution of the atmosphere. How urban systems operate and how we deal with waste management and industrialisation and how we can use our understanding of this topic and apply it in a way to achieve sustainable use of the environment. So that is one example, this is a first year first semester subject in environmental studies.

A second example is a course on climate change and variability, it’s probably the most pressing issue humanity is facing currently. We have to understand how we impact on the climate. There is natural variability in the climate system. Climate drives where we live, how we build our cities, houses, how much heating is required in winter, how much cooling is required during summer, so we need to know how climate operates in the past present and future. So this course will introduce you as a student in this program to the processes and mechanisms that drive our natural world and our climate system. We will introduce you to climate models, you have read in the paper that the climate is changing. We know that climate, in two hundred years time will be warmer by two or three degrees. How do we know this? We use climate models. So in this course you will learn about climate models in a very descriptive way. We want to communicate to you an understanding that you can assess the performance of these climate models without necessarily understanding the full mathematical and physical details of these models but you will learn how to assess the output of these models and how to assess future climate scenarios. We will introduce you to climate change, climate variability, to past climates of the planet on all scales, from global to regional and local scales. We’ll also introduce you to historical approaches, how we already dealing with climate change, the sea level is rising, storms are more frequent, they impact on our coast environments, on areas such as the Gold Coast and Hervey Bay, and we know that our climate is drying so how is the system operating and leads to these changes. So that is a second year course in this major.

So in summary, the Bachelor of Science Environmental Sustainability offers rewarding careers in industry and public enterprises, it offers the opportunity to contribute to the sustainability agenda in many professional fields with the program and its courses and major appealing to a broad range of interests.