English

This course examines plants and plant communities through a focus on medium to large scale planting design and green infrastructure that supports healthy urban environments. It covers planting design strategies and structures as integral components of urban and suburban landscape systems, as well as planting design strategies that have been implemented or proposed in the Sydney Region. 

This course introduces urban studies in the Middle East, drawing on textual, visual, and collaborative resources to critically explore contemporary urban life in the region. It situates the region within broader discussions on the global “urban age,” an era where purportedly half of the world’s growing population lives and works in cities. The course explores the structural and everyday forces and actors—states, people, culture, nature, wars, and disasters—that shape and connect cities across the region. It draws on debates and methodologies in urban sociology, political economy, and anthropology. The course blends theory and practice through collaborative, experiential methods such as urban diary writing, visual ethnography, and field visits.

This course concentrates on the beginning stages of working on a play: from the initial reading through early conceptualization (before the artists go into their studio or rehearsal room.) Using the text as the foundation, students deepen their understanding of the play through brainstorming, discussions and research (both of the play, the playwright, and the visual world of the play). The class uses the basic building blocks of the theater (ACTORS performing an ACTION while an AUDIENCE watches) and asks how these elements can be used and exploited to further the ideas of the artist.   

The course begins with students working on short plays then moves into longer dramatic works. The course features texts with a clear narrative form that allows multiple interpretations, with the first projects being short, individual projects and the final project being a collaborative group project. Last, the course features three professional theater artists to share their early interruptive processes with the class.    

The purpose of designing this course is to provide an effective teaching and discussion environment for learning financial statement knowledge. The main content of the course includes: the basic accounting principles and applications of modern enterprise financial accounting, accounting treatment methods for basic economic transactions and events, and the principles of preparing the three main accounting statements (i.e. balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement). 

This course develops students' knowledge of the key microeconomic issues facing developing economies, and deepens their familiarity with modern analytical and empirical approaches to development economics with an emphasis on the most recent advances in the field. Students also learn about the use of formal microeconomic modelling in development, the links between formal models and empirics, and the seminal debates in development. Students must have taken a microeconomics course prior to enrollment.

This course is an introduction to international trade for students who already have sound knowledge in introductory microeconomics. The course covers the following topics: the main reasons for trade; trade patterns; trade and income distribution; FDI and outsourcing; trade policy instruments; the World Trade Organization, and the multilateral trading system. 
 

This course examines an introduction to Buddhist ritual practice in Chinese Buddhism from the perspectives of their psychological, religious and spiritual significance. It begins by exploring several theories and research methods of ritual adopted in anthropology and religious studies and proceeds to studies of the doctrinal, mythic and other dimensions of Buddhist practice, examining the structural patterns of various rituals, surveying the different categories of ceremonies, and analyzing the most important types of rituals, including the recitation of sutras (scriptures) and mantras, funeral ritual, ritual of liberation of living animals, and the ritual of saving all sentient beings from water and land (shuilu fahui) are examined in some detail. The focus of concerns will be the effort of ritual experiences on individual enlightenment, effect of ritual, and the expression of participants’ understanding of Buddhist teaching. 

This course 1) provides an introduction to how to understand and analyze urban process and urban change; 2) introduces issues confronted by citizens, planners, policymakers and citizens in both urbanized and rapidly urbanizing areas. Throughout the course, we will take a comparative approach to the topics, not only drawing case studies drawn from different regions in the world but also paying particular attention to the ongoing urban transformation in China.

This course provides students with an integrated understanding of the dynamics of environment-economy interactions, including the depth of dynamic and nonlinear behavior of the environmental and economic systems as they interact and change over time. This contributes to develop students’ innovative use of specialized knowledge and critical thinking skills in designing cost-effective environmental planning and programs in addressing many of today’s complex environmental challenges and economic issues. 

The course then discusses of a wide range of topics, covering the theory and practice in system dynamics; complex economy-environment system interactions and their resultant multiple cause and effect consequences; theory and practice in environmental policymaking, and the role of value orientations in sustainable environmental decision-making and policy design, among other subjects of interest. The discussions will be empirically tested using relevant case studies drawing from academic research and actual field study. 

In this course, students gain a fundamental knowledge of microbiology, and the experimental tools used. The course focuses on microbes and techniques for studying them, through a combination of theoretical knowledge and hands-on experiments. Students examine the invisible world of microbes, investigating microbiomes of skin, soil and water, and exploring the role of probiotics. The course includes visits to a microbiology-related industry and witnessing real-world applications of their learnings. The course requires students to take General Biology as a prerequisite.