Postgraduate Course: Introduction to Planetary Health: Core Skills and Concepts (EFIE11516)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | *Programme Core Course: Planetary Health (MSc)*
Planetary health is an emerging field examining the interdependency between human health and the integrity of the planet's natural systems. This course introduces key skills and concepts using data case studies and critically evaluating the evidence available to inform decisions on some of humanity's most pressing challenges. Specifically, you will consider the evidence-base underlying key concepts of Planetary Health, including: food systems, climate change, biodiversity, soil erosion and food and nutrition security.
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| Course description |
This course will examine the ways in which human development has an impact on the earth's natural resources and life sustaining boundaries, examining the underlying drivers such as consumption, demographic shifts and technologies. It will introduce key ecological challenges including climate change, global pollution, biodiversity loss, fundamental life-resources scarcity and insecurity, and altered biogeochemical systems and cycles, considering these alongside changing disease spread, food production patterns, and air quality.
Students will become familiar with the cross-cutting, intersectoral nature of these drivers and causes, their scale and the urgency to take action. They will develop knowledge of underlying concepts and cross cutting principles of planetary health such as policy, communication, inequality and inequity, bias, governance, unintended consequences, global citizenship and identity.
Students will develop a critical understanding of the key terms used in the course through the development of an interactive glossary.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute delivers many of its courses in hybrid mode. This means that you may have some online students joining sessions for this course. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities.
Students should be aware that:
- Classrooms used in this course will have additional technology in place: in some cases, students might not be able to sit in areas away from microphones or outside the field of view of all cameras.
- All presentations, and whole class discussions will be recorded (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details).
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, a physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 16,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Story Telling Artefact (50%)
The planetary Health Alliance has issued a call for storytelling which can engage the wider public in understanding the urgency of planetary health crisis. Creating stories that are embedded in cultural histories and that engage the public in how to mobilise to action is a powerful tool that touches on many or the cross-cutting principles of planetary health.
Students will be guided through the process of exploring storytelling and applying it to a crisis in a way that is creative and engaging. Artefacts can be illustrated, audio recordings, narrative, performances. There will be a requirement for a critical element outlining the wider context of the artefact. These will be short - an equivalent of 5 minutes or 1,000 words.
Assessment criteria will focus on explaining a specific Planetary Health scenario/crisis to a defined audience in an appropriate way.
2) Data Visualisation Portfolio (50%)
This assessment will consolidate knowledge of planetary health crises and data skills in a multi-media portfolio. Students will visualise and communicate a selected planetary health challenge, including a proposed solution, through a chosen medium which could include written report, research proposal, video recording, or advocacy brief. |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Formative Feedback Opportunity:
Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors learning and is intended to improve performance in the same course, in future courses, and also beyond study.
For a formative assignment, students will be required to complete a presentation and will receive written feedback in the sessions.
Feedback will also /be provided through lecture discussions, seminars, and group activities and discussions.
Summative feedback will be provided in a written summary that assesses the clarity of storytelling and data visualization. In particular, the students will be assessed for clarity of communication, vision, and critical reflection.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of the underlying concepts of the planetary health approach including its development timeline and key cross cutting principles.
- Analyse a range of case studies using the planetary health lens and communicate using appropriate methods.
- Evaluate and assess data-sets relevant to planetary health.
- Develop original and creative responses to challenges and present solutions on planetary health issues using data.
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Reading List
Indicative Reading List:
Essential Reading:
Haines, A. and Frumkin, H., 2021. Planetary health: Safeguarding human health and the environment in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press.
Horton, R., Beaglehole, R., Bonita, R., Raeburn, J., McKee, M. and Wall, S., 2014. From public to planetary health: a manifesto. The Lancet, 383(9920), p.847.
Seltenrich, N. (2018). Down to earth: the emerging field of planetary health. Environmental health perspectives, 126(7), 072001.
Whitmee, S., Haines, A., Beyrer, C., Boltz, F., Capon, A.G., de Souza Dias, B.F., Ezeh, A., Frumkin, H., Gong, P., Head, P. and Horton, R., 2015. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation: Lancet Commission on planetary health. The lancet, 386(10007), pp.1973-2028.
Recommended Reading:
Raworth. (2017). A Doughnut for the Anthropocene: humanity's compass in the 21st century Planet-proofing the global food system. The Lancet Commissions, 1. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/S2542-5196(17)30028-1
Salk. (2019). Planetary Health: A New Reality. Challenges, 10. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/challe10010007
Willett et al. (2019). The Lancet Commissions Food in the Anthropocene : the EAT - Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet Commissions, 393. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4
Further Reading:
Garcia et al. (2019). EATLancet vs yes2meat: the digital backlash to the planetary health diet. In The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32526-7
Van Zanten et al. (2018). Defining a land boundary for sustainable livestock consumption. In Global Change Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14321
Röös et al. (2017). Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures. Global Environmental Change. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.09.001
Stone, Myers and Golden. 2018. Cross-cutting principles for planetary health education. The Lancet Planetary Health |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Planetary Health,Human Health,Key Skills,Concepts,Food Systems,Climate Change,Biodiversity |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Rowan Jackson
Tel: (0131 6)51 4340
Email: Rowan.Jackson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Yasmine Lewis
Tel:
Email: yasmine.lewis@ed.ac.uk |
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