Climate change and One Health BIOL5424

  • Academic Session: 2024-25
  • School: MVLS College Services
  • Credits: 20
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Summer
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Taught Wholly by Distance Learning: Yes
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No

Short Description

This course will give students a brief introduction to climate change, including drivers of global warming and potential mitigation strategies, and explore the potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity, human health and infectious disease transmission. We will then use a One Health framework to explore ways to address the challenges posed by climate change on these factors.

Timetable

Teaching will be delivered over 11 weeks online. The pattern is as follows:

5 weeks teaching followed by 1 week for revision/catch-up, followed by another 5 weeks of teaching.

The timetable is flexible and asynchronous to allow maximum student flexibility

Requirements of Entry

none

Excluded Courses

none

Co-requisites

none

Assessment

Students will complete two assessments for this course:

■ One case study (50%). The maximum word count for this assignment will not exceed 2500 words. This assessment maps to ILOs 1-4

■ One oral presentation (50%). The duration of this oral assessment will not exceed 12 minutes. This assessment maps to ILOs 1-4.

Course Aims

The course aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the interconnected nature of climate, biodiversity and health and the ability to assess the effects of climate change on each of these individually and in concert. It will also provide students with the knowledge and skills to evaluate multidisciplinary One Health approaches, and how to use these approaches to address the challenges posed by climate change on climate, biodiversity, and health.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

 

1. Identify and critically discuss drivers of climate change.

2. Critically appraise the interconnectedness of climate, biodiversity, and health, and the impact of climate change on these individually and in concert.

3. Critically assess the impact of global climate change and temperature extremes on human and animal health, the transmission of infectious diseases and global food systems.

4. Evaluate how multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary One Health approaches could inform policy and practice to address issues related to climate change.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.