Summer School 2011: 13 June - 24 July 2011

Energy Tomorrow: An Engineering and Management Perspective
Australian Environment, Wildlife and Conservation
Beyond the Fatal Shore: Australian History, Sport and Politics
Imaging Australia: Australian Film, Literature and Media in Perspective
Sustaining the Attraction of Australia: Tourism and Recreation Management
International Business: Australia and South East Asia


Energy Tomorrow: An Engineering and Management Perspective
This six-week course for engineering students explores energy and sustainability, with a focus on new developments in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. The course is based on ninety-hours of lectures, tutorials, laboratory work, demonstrations, site visits, computer simulations, assignments and discussion periods.

The University of New South Wales is recognised as the top university for energy R&D in Australia with many of the research groups among the world leaders in their field. Various UNSW lecturers cover the following topics:

World Energy: This topic examines the international outlook for both traditional and renewable energy sources; energy, economic growth and the environment, including implications of the Kyoto Protocol; and structural change in the electricity supply industry. A primary focus of the unit is the comparative economics of sustainable energy systems.
Energy and Sustainable Development: Our society’s energy systems have a critical role to play in driving sustainable development. Key sustainability drivers are energy poverty in the developing world and the environmental harms of present energy systems. We consider three key issues around the following topics: World Energy, Energy and Environmental Implications with a focus on climate change, and a sustainable ‘energy services’ paradigm with a focus on sustainable energy technology innovation.

Energy and the Built Environment: explores energy use in buildings, sustainable architecture, thermal comfort, passive design, energy performance modelling, building systems, HVAC and lighting in buildings. Computer simulations are used to highlight the effects of various design techniques on energy usage – glazing of windows, thermal storage, insulation, and ventilation.

Energy Storage: Energy storage systems include electrochemical, chemical and thermal. The principles of electrochemical energy systems and fundamentals of electrochemistry, secondary batteries and fuel cells are considered.
Energy and the Process Industries: Process industries form the basis of modern society and will continue to play a major role. Research initiatives worldwide have paved the way for advancing the development of sustainable processes. Energy efficiency and waste utilisation are some of the key features of many of the sustainable processes that are discussed.

Renewable Energy: Biomass considers biomass and agricultural wastes in the production of alternative fuels; Photovoltaic Devices and Systems examines the basics of converting sunlight into electricity; Wind Energy describes the components of a wind turbine, examines the interaction of wind and rotor, considers fatigue, and examines the process of electricity generation and supply to the grid (wind farms).

Emerging Energy Technologies: There is a number of highly promising but, as yet, commercially unproven energy technologies, which may play a very important role in our future energy systems over the longer term. We focus on emerging Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), geothermal, solar, Generation III and proposed Generation IV nuclear power plants and hydrogen technologies.

Locations
Students travel to Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Kings Canyon and Uluru in Central Australia, Sydney and Cairns.
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Australian Environment, Wildlife and Conservation
From its rainforests, coastlines and coral reefs to its arid interior, Australia offers a diverse range of physical and cultural landscapes and ecosystems to explore, and an intriguing ever-changing relationship to uncover between humans and their environment.

Academics from the University of New South Wales present a practical and theoretical introduction to the Australian environment, wildlife and conservation. This course covers a variety of environmental, wildlife and conservation issues by drawing on a diverse range of disciplines including environmental science, geography, politics, history, sociology and cultural studies.

Through a combination of field trips and classroom-based study, students look at the cultural, political and economic forces that have shaped the Australian landscape from the period before human settlement until the present. This includes learning that conservation integrates natural and cultural values, incorporating the preservation of biodiversity, wilderness, significant natural landforms and indigenous heritage. The course also looks at the impact people have on the landscape, the interaction of industry and community in the urban environment, and the development of environmental awareness and environmental controversies. Through all of these topics, Australia’s unique flora and fauna are examined and used to highlight the various climatically varied regions visited throughout the course.

This is an introductory level science course, which is also relevant for broader environmental and cultural studies programs. It assumes no, or very little previous tertiary level biological science, however, biology students would have the opportunity to expand their knowledge, particularly in the area of environmental management.

Locations
Students travel to Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Kings Canyon and Uluru in Central Australia, Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Daintree Rainforest and Cairns.
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Beyond the Fatal Shore: Australian History, Sport and Politics
This course presents a narrative overview of key topics in Australian history and explores some of the essential themes of the Australian experience. Through the lenses of Australia’s sporting history, its political landscape and the development of the bush and Anzac mythologies, the nature of Australia’s identity is uncovered. Using a variety of teaching mediums (lectures, seminars, films and excursions), the course introduces students to major aspects of the Australian experience.

Some of the other major topics that are explored include:

• What is/was the nature of traditional Aboriginal society, and how has that changed since colonisation?
• What are the major events and influences that have shaped contemporary Australian society?
• The development of culture in Australia from 1788 to the present;
• The development and importance of the Bush and Anzac mythologies;
• The concept of sport as (Australian) culture;
• Politics, racism and gender issues in Australian sport;
• The development of Australian liberal democracy;
• Indigenous Australians and contemporary political discourse;
• Constitutional systems, political parties and culture;
• public-policy making in sport and the evolution of the governance of sport;
• the importance of the media in the development and presentation of Australian sporting cultures.

These are some of the questions that are addressed in the lecture/seminar series and related excursions:

• What is the meaning and background of the Wik and Mabo decisions?
• Over a hundred years after Federation, why is Australia still not a republic?
• To what extent is there a distinctive Australian literary and visual culture?
• Is Australia really a classless society?
• How have Australians negotiated the complex series of relationships with their powerful allies (including the US) and near neighbours?

Locations
Students travel to Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Canberra, Sydney, and Cairns.
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Imaging Australia: Australian Film, Literature and Media in Perspective
What images and personalities do you associate with Australia? Wild nature, crocodiles, Aboriginal art, tough-as-nails bushmen, kangaroos, Steve Irwin, beautiful beaches or the endless outback? This course examines how such images feature in Australian film and literature and what they suggest about Australian identity and culture. Through creative projects, video production and textual analysis of literature and film, students undertake individual and group activities to interrogate dominant national myths and to discover the nuances and intricacies of Australian culture, nationalism and identity politics.

Popular television shows, films, short stories, documentaries, novels and poetry are just some of the types of texts students investigate in this course. Reading texts through critical materials and exploring themes through creative tasks and vibrant seminar discussions, students develop a comprehensive understanding of Australian film, literature and culture. Students also discover the key images and transformative re-imaginings that compose the Australian conceptions of place, race, gender, culture and identity.

Students are given the opportunity to blog about texts and excursions, work in groups to produce a short video, and present (individually and in groups) textual and critical readings in seminars. The course caters both to students with and without video-making skills and would be of particular interest to students studying Film Studies, English, Media & Communications and Cultural Studies. Students who have not had video-making experience are taught the basic skills during the course.

Locations
Students travel to Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Melbourne, Sydney and Cairns.
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Sustaining the Attraction of Australia: Tourism and Recreation Management
This six-week, ninety-hour course is coordinated by UNSW’s Tourism and Hospitality Management Unit, and comprises lectures, industry case studies, workshops, industry presentations, field excursions and travel throughout some of the most prominent and diverse tourist destinations in Australia. At these locations students come face-to-face with tourism and recreation management issues facing public and private organisations across the broad spectrum of sectors in the tourism industry.

The combination of theory and real-life business management case studies provides students with a uniquely engaging and enriching way of learning how Australia is addressing the challenge of sustainability, within the context of tourism and recreation management. Through field trips to businesses and key attractions at the various geographic locations, students experience first-hand the behind-the-scenes operations necessary for orchestrating the great ‘tourist theme park’ which is Australia. The interdisciplinary approach utilised throughout the course, incorporating marketing, business management, sociology, psychology, history and biology, aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills that can be used in a range of industries and future careers.

Today tourism is the world’s largest industry and its biggest employer. The significance of tourism to the Asia Pacific region and in particular Australia is in line with this trend. From small beginnings a mere 20 years ago, tourism is now Australia’s largest revenue earner and, according to independent research (Tourism NSW), is America’s most desirable destination. Australia has been described as ‘the world’s greatest tourist playground offering the most exciting and diverse range of experiences imaginable’. Students participating in this course visit many of its stunning natural, cultural and man-made attractions. In doing so, they will discover the marketing and management techniques that have been used to create such impressive tourism growth, whilst conserving the natural and built heritage environments credited with attracting tourists in the first place.

Locations Students travel to Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Melbourne, Sydney, the Gold Coast, Byron Bay and Cairns.
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International Business: Australia and South East Asia
This multi-disciplinary course is co-ordinated within the UNSW Australian School of Business. The ninety-hour course comprises lectures, country case studies, workshops and excursions to a variety of South East Asian embassies in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The aim of the course is to provide a detailed understanding of how international business is conducted in South East Asian economies.

South East Asian business is a product of history and culture. It is emerging from the economic downturn of the late 1990s and is currently undergoing an expansionary phase. The course informs students of the recent histories, political structures, economic systems, industries and financial structures of South East Asian economies. In addition to this, the course examines the significant family structures of the larger businesses in South East Asia, including an examination of the cultural practices and entry barriers to the market itself. The course focuses on Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, China (including Hong Kong) and Thailand. References are made to the closed economies of the Indo-Chinese countries of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Students gain an appreciation of how to market to South East Asian companies, including the development of proposals and understanding the cultural sensitivities associated with conducting business with companies in this area.

Locations
Students travel to Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Canberra, Sydney, and Cairns.