Geography

There are more than 750 million people living on islands, from the densely populated urban centers of the Philippines and Hawaii’s to the atolls and archipelagos of the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, and Indian Ocean. Climate change is a global challenge that requires locally designed interventions and action. Islands are at the front line of the effects of climate change. Key challenges: rising temperature and sea levels, lack of fresh water supply, plastic pollution, sewage blockages, high number of tourists in season time, and dependence on fossil fuels imports and high prices. This course provides an understanding of the relationships between human needs and resource use under different climatic scenarios with focus on islands. Students draw on practical case studies, analyze possible solutions, and explore ways to inform decision-makers and the general public.

This course is an overview of the broad field of recreation and leisure, emphasizing the understanding of various leisure phenomena. As such, it provides students with an introductory understanding of the nature and scope of leisure, leisure behavior and affiliated recreation activity. It also reviews relationships between leisure and space, place, time, play, work, family, education, ethnicity, gender and environment.

The course focuses on concepts, theories, and problems of development and underdevelopment; social and economic challenges; external relations and trends in interdependence in the geographical regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The concept and practical issues of development; physical and cultural resources in spatial development; population dynamics; economic, social, and political development within the framework of spatial organization; spatial diffusion theories and application; trends interdependence, international trade and aid are also explored.