ENVS8418 and 7418 Environmental Planning

Assignment 1. Reflection

Due:                                        26th August (9:00AM) (week 5)

Weighting:                             20% of your total mark

Format:                                  Reflective journal

Length:                                   1500 words (max) and up to 8 pages (including references)

This assessment has 2 parts.

1. A weekly reflection to track your developing understanding of environmental planning, its theories and application covering the first 4 weeks of the semester.
2. The development of a portfolio of related policies, plans, reports and other documents that connect what you learnt in each class. Your examples should build from those presented in class. Students are encouraged to look outside the jurisdiction of NSW. Your portfolio should highlight examples of good, poor or different practice. This can take various forms such as text, tables (SWOT analysis) diagrams, and images. You must reference your materials.

PART A. Reflective Journal Weeks 1 – 4  

The ‘journal’ is used to document your reflective thinking about the concepts of environmental planning as covered in the first 4 weeks of semester. This is not simply a repeat of lecture/tutorial content, rather the task is designed for you to reflect more deeply on the subject matter and how land use and environmental planning is designed to make ‘better’ cities and regions. As part of your reflection you are invited to question the value proposition of key ideas and theories and posit you own ideas as to what constitutes good strategic land use and environmental planning.

As part of your reflective journal you are expected to read more broadly to deepen your understanding. This may include the references provided in the lecture but should reference other material. Your readings should also relate to Part B, your portfolio, of relevant government policies, that would point to your critical analysis of these and how they related to your understanding of the topics as presented in class.

As a guide, Part A would make up around 800 - 1,000 words of your total word count.

PART B. Portfolio

The ‘portfolio’ is a collection of ideas or references for activities that you could use in the future. This may include examples of related policies, programs, development control standards, strategic or statutory assessment tools that are designed to support environmental planning outcomes. These may relate to different scales of development planning (lot based planning controls to strategic planning at the bioregional scale) and from different jurisdictions (noting that many of the in-class examples will be New South Wales based, you are encouraged to look at other states and territories in Australia and international examples).

Your portfolio is more than a collection of plans and policies. For each example you are required to comment on why you have included this and how it related to one or more of the topics covered in the lectures and or workshop exercises as covered in the first 4 weeks. For each resource in your portfolio provide a summary so you can remember why you selected it. As a guide you should include the following information as a minimum:

• Name of policy/plan/tool etc…
• Its purpose or planning intent
• How it aims to achieve its aim or objectives
• Source (so you can find it again) and include this in your references
• A brief critical analysis.

You may additional example materials/policies as a supplementary to this assessment as a means of demonstrating your deeper connection to the subject matter. This would be over and above the page/word limit. Supplementary material will not be marked but these additional resources may prove to be useful later in the unit and for future assessments.

References

As part of your reflection and portfolio you are required to include at least 15 references.

7 of your references these should be peer reviewed literature and others may be government reports, policies, strategies, news articles etc. 

Note the references will provide evidence of wide reading on the topic and where relevant seeking to provide national and international context to ideas and theories. 

The references are not included in the page/word limit

Criteria for Assessment

Reflection (40%)

• Reflecting upon what is purpose of environmental and land use planning
• Reflecting on how strategic and statutory (development assessment) intersect
• Reflecting upon key theories that underpin strategic environmental planning
• Reflecting upon how what you have learn confronts or aligns with your own values, assumptions as well as professional knowledge.
• Reflecting upon what constitutes good practice (that may also include poor practice in order to highlight a point) in environmental and strategic planning. This reflection would also link to your portfolio.

Analysis (30%)

• Evidence that you have consulted and critically assessed a wide range of sources.
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• Portfolio (30%)
• Include and critically assess relevant examples of environmental plans and policies
• Summarize key issues of these plans and relate this back to your theoretical understanding