2013 study streams for UQ GPEM careers day

The University of Queensland Geography, Planning and Environmental Management Day Learn how studying geography can lead to a career with real-world impact. Choose your area of interest: • • • •

Planning a sustainable community Exploring the depths The sustainability paradox Putting people in their place: Population, development and the environment in the 21st Century

• How geography predicts the future • The fight for survival: Food, water and shelter • Management in a carbon constrained world

To select your study stream visit http://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/workshops Planning a Sustainable Community Lecture: How Geography informs other areas of Science to enable people to make better decisions in the management of Natural Resources. What makes a sustainable community?

Workshop: Explore the economic, social and environmental considerations behind planning cities and towns .

Exploring the depths Lecture: Australia is an island nation where three of the world’s great ocean’s meet: the Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans. Over such a large area Geographers are essential to ensuring the proper management of our coastal and marine environments, which they do through fieldwork and remote sensing.

Workshop Satellites see more than you realise. Learn how Geographers use satellite images to understand what is happening in Australia’s coastal environments. You will need to complete this waiver form and bring it with you in order to participate in this workshop.

Geography helps predict the future Lecture: Learn about how ancient chironomid larvae in lakes could provide the answer to how climate change has affected Australia’s weather over the past 21,000 years and the impacts this research will have on our current understanding of climate change.

Workshop: Learn about some of the techniques scientists use to uncover the past and explore UQ’s history through sediment.

Putting people in their place: Population, Development and the Environment in the 21st Century Lecture: The United Nations project that the global population will stabilize at around 10 billion by the second half of the 21st Century, adding an extra 3 billion people to the planet. Not only will there be more of us, but we will be older, and more urban. Learn about the demographic processes underpinning this transformation and explore what 10 billion people might mean for human development and the environment.

Workshop: Explore the linkages between demography, development, and the environment first hand! You will need to complete this waiver form and bring it with you in order to participate in this workshop.

The Sustainability Paradox Lecture: Sustainable development sounds like a good idea. Few would disagree with the goal of improving human wellbeing without disadvantaging future generations or damaging our global life-support system.

So why don’t we actually DO sustainable development? This lecture will explore the reasons why humanity tends not to do what seems to be in its own best interests – and why understanding these reasons is essential to achieving sustainable development.

Workshop: Perhaps the most prominent example of a failure to act in humanity’s collective best interests is the poor progress that we are making towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although the need to achieve reductions is clear scientifically and accepted by almost all nations, we continue to track high-emissions scenarios, leading towards dangerous climate change.

Working in groups, each of which will represent a different nation, we will see if you can do better than world leaders in negotiating a solution to climate change.

Calculate your ecological footprint online and bring it with you.

The Fight for Survival: Food, water and shelter Lecture: "Both humans and animals need three critical resources to survive – food, water, and shelter. To grow enough food, store enough water and to build our houses & roads we need to modify the natural environment. This affects the food, water and shelter resources available for animals and in turn affects us.

Through sustainable development we can make sure critical resources are retained or replaced so both natural and modified environments continue to function and provide resources both for us and for wildlife. But what are these critical resources? How do we identify them? "

Workshop: A Geographic Focus on Conservation: Discover what it is about natural and modified environments that allow both humans and animals to survive.

Is the UQ campus sustainably developed? Can wildlife find food, water and shelter resources on campus?

Management in a Carbon Constrained World Lecture: Learn how the future of business is affected by the carbon cycle, carbon trading and the Kyoto Protocol, the uses for carbon in the economy and business exposure to carbon constraints.

Workshop: In this workshop you will examine the issues that influence business management arising from increasing constraints on the use of carbon-based products and services and explore the strategic opportunities businesses have in a carbon-constrained market environment.